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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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CIVILIZATION 


DUEING    THE    MIDDLE    AGES 


ESPECIALLY  IN  RELATION  TO  MODERN 
CIVILIZATION 


'  BY 

GEOEGE   BUETO:Nt   ADAMS 

PROFESSOR  OF  HISTORY  IN  TALE  UNIVERSITY 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

18U4 


COPYKIGHT,   1894,   BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


4822 

TBOW  DIRECTORY 
»N0  eOOKBISDINO  COMPANY 
NEW   YORK 


Cojf-   I 


PREFACE 

Che  object  of  this  book  is  to  show  how  the  foundations 

Dur  civilization  were  laid  in  the  past  and  how  its  chief 

ments  were  introduced,  and  to  depict  its  progressive 

/elopment  until  it  had  assumed  its  most  characteristic 

•dem  features.     Its  purpose  is  to  show  the  movement 

i  direction  df  historic  forces,  and  the  relation  of  the 

its  of  history  one  to  another.     In  other  words,  it  is  to 

3sent  as  clear  a  view  as  possible  of  what  is  the  most 

Iportant  thing  for  all  introductory  study  at  least,  and 

.'  the  permanent  intellectual   furniture   of  most — the 

lierly  and  organic  growth  of  our  civilization.     If  any- 

lere  the  details  have  been  allowed  to  obscure  the  gen- 

al  movement,  there  I  have  failed  to  realize  my  intention. 

The  purpose  of  the  book,  therefore,  is  not  to  teach  the 

ets  of  history  themselves.     It  assumes  that  they  are 

lown.     If  such  is  not  the  case,  it  is  recommended  that 

.e  be  made,  in  connection  with  this  book,  of  some  other 

liich  is  devoted  mainly  to  the  facts,  to  which  reference 

ay  be  made  when  necessary.     Either  Dimiy's  Middle 

ges,  or  Fisher's  Outlines  of  Universal  History,  will  be 

'Und  especially  helpful  for  this  purpose. 

This  being  the  object  of  the  book,  the  notes  have  been 

mfined  as  closely  as  possible  to  references  to  the  best  of 


VI  PREFACE 

easily  accessible  books  where  fuller  accounts  may  be 
found,  or  whicli  contain  translations  of  the  original 
sources,  and  to  the  statement  of  points  which  seemed  im- 
portant in  themselves,  but  which  did  not  find  a  natural 
place  in  the  text.  In  a  few  cases  where  a  single  authority 
has  been  closely  followed,  a  reference  has  been  added. 
Otherwise  reference  has  not  been  made  to  the  authorities 
used.  Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  literature  of  the 
subjects  treated  will  be  able  to  recognize  them,  and  they 
will  be  able  also,  I  believe,  to  find  some  evidence  of  orig- 
inal knowledge  and  of  independent  judgment. 

This  book  is  an  outgTowth  of  the  author's  Primer  of 
Mediceval  Civilization  in  the  "  History  Primer  Series," 
and  that  book  may  perhaps  be  used  with  advantage  as  a 
more  full  summary  than  the  one  given  in  the  last  chapter 
of  this  volume. 

New  Haven,  December  21,  1893. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  I. 
Introduction, 1 


CHAPTER  II. 
What  the  Middle  Ages  Started  with,         .        .       .        .14 


CHAPTER  ni. 
The  Addition  of  Christianity, 39 


CHAPTER  IV. 
The  German  Conquest  and  the  Fall  of  Rome,  ...      65 

CHAPTER  V. 
What  the  Germans  Added, 89 

CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Formation  of  the  Papacy, 107 

CHAPTER  VIL                      ^ 
The  Franks  and  Charlemagne, 137 

CHAPTER  Vin. 
After  Charlemagne 170 


VIU  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  IX. 
The  Feudal  System, ,       .       .    194 

CHAPTER  X. 
The  Empibe  and  the  Papacy, 227 

CHAPTER  XI. 
The  Crusades, 258 

CHAPTER  XII. 
The  Growth  of  Commerce  and  Its  Results,       ...       .    279 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
The  Formation  of  France,      .        .        .....    311 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
England  and  the  other  States, 339 

CHAPTER  XV. 
The  Renaissance, 364 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
The  Papacy  in  the  New  Age, 392 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
The  Reformation, 416 

CHAPTER  XVm. 
Summary, 443 


MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 


CHAPTER    I. 

INTEODUCTION 

History  is  commonly  divided,  for  convenience'  sake, 
into  tliree  great  periods — ancient,  medieval,  and  modem. 
Sucli  a  division  is,  to  tliis  extent,  a  natural  one  that  each 
of  these  periods  in  a  large  view  of  it  is  distinguished 
by  certain  peculiarities  from  the  others.  Ancient  his- 
tory begins  in  an  unknown  antiquity,  and  is  character- 
ized by  a  very  considerable  progress  of  civilization 
along  three  or  four  separate  lines,  each  the  work  of  a 
distinct  people,  the  results  of  whose  labors  are  not  com- 
bined into  a  common  whole  until  near  the  close  of  this 
period.  As  the  period  approaches  its  end  the  vitality  of 
the  ancient  races  appears  to  decline  and  the  progress  of 
civilization  ceases,  except,  perhaps,  along  a  single  line. 

Medieval  history  opens  with  the  introduction  of  a  new 
and  youthful  race  upon  the  stage — a  race  destined  to 
take  up  the  work  of  the  ancient  world  and  to  carry  it  on. 
But  they  are  at  the  beginning  upon  a  far  lower  stage 
of  civilization  than  antiquity  had  reached.  In  order 
to  comprehend  its  work  and  continue  it,  they  must  be 
brought  up  to  that  level.  This  is  necessarily  a  long  and 
slow  process,  accompanied  with  much  apparent  loss  of 
civilization,   much   ignorance   and   anarchy,    and   many 


)£  MEDimSA  CIVILIZATION 

merely  temporary  makeshifts  in  ideas  and  institutions. 
But  gradually  improvement  begins,  the  new  society  comes 
to  comj)rehend  more  and  more  clearly  the  work  it  has  to 
do  and  the  results  gained  by  its  predecessors,  it  begins 
to  add  new  achievements  to  the  old  ones,  and  the  period 
closes  when  at  last  the  new  nations,  in  fairly  complete 
possession  of  the  work  of  the  ancient  world  in  literature, 
science,  philosophy,  and  religion,  open  with  the  greatest 
energy  and  vigor  a  new  age  of  progress.  This  is  medie- 
val history,  the  fii'st  part  of  it — the  "  dark  ages,"  if  it  is 
right  to  call  them  by  that  name — when  ancient  civiliza- 
tion fell  a  prey  to  savage  violence  and  superstition  ;  the 
last  part  of  it,  the  recovery  of  that  civilization,  with  some 
important  additions,  by  the  now  transformed  barbarians 
— the  period  which  we  call,  when  it  has  fully  opened, 
the  age  of  the  Renaissance. 

Modern  history,  again,  is  characterized  by  the  most 
rapid  and  successful  advance  along  a  great  variety  of 
lines,  not  now,  so  much  as  in  the  ancient  world,  the  dis- 
tinctive work  of  separate  peoples,  but  all  parts  of  a  com- 
mon world  civilization  which  all  nations  possess  alike. 

While,  however,  we  can  point  out  in  this  way  dis- 
tinguishing features  of  these  larger  periods,  we  must 
carefully  bear  in  mind  the  elementary  fact  of  all  history, 
that  there  are  no  clearly  marked  boundary  lines  between 
its  subdivisions.  One  age  passes  into  another  by  a 
gradual  transformation  which  is  entirely  unnoticed  by 
the  actors  of  the  time,  and  which  can  be  far  moj-e  clearly 
pointed  out  by  the  historian  as  an  accomplished  fact 
than  by  anything  in  the  process.  i 

We  commonly  say  that  ancient  history  closed  with  the 
year  476  a.d.  The  great  fact  which  marks  the  close  of 
that  age  and  the  beginning  of  a  new  one  is  the  conquest 
of  the  Western  Roman  Empire  by  the  German  tribes,  a 
process  which  occupied  the  whole  of  the  fifth  centmy 


INTRODUCTION  3 

and  more.  But  if  we  are  to  select  any  special  date  to 
mark  the  change,  the  year  476  is  the  best  for  the  pur- 
pose. The  conquest  was  then  well  under  way,  and  in 
that  year  the  title  of  Emperor  of  Eome  was  given  up  in 
the  West,  where  it  had  been  for  a  long  time  a  mere 
shadow ;  an  embassy  was  sent  to  Constantinople  to  say 
that  the  West  would  be  satisfied  with  the  one  emperor 
in  the  East,  and  to  request  him  to  commit  the  govern- 
ment of  Italy  to  Odoaker.  At  the  moment  all  the  other 
provinces  of  the  West  were  occupied,  or  just  about  to  be 
occupied,  by  new  German  kingdoms,  some  faintly  ac- 
knowledging the  supremacy  of  the  empire,  others  not 
at  all. 

When  we  turn  to  the  close  of  medieval  history  we 
find  no  such  general  agreement  as  to  the  specific  date 
which  shall  be  selected  to  stand  for  that  fact.  For  one 
author  it  is  1453,  the  fall  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Empire 
through  the  capture  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks ;  for 
another,  1492,  the  discovery  of  America  ;  for  another, 
1520,  the  full  opening  of  the  Reformation.  This  variety 
of  date  is  in  itself  very  significant.  It  unconsciously 
marks  the  extremely  important  fact  that  the  middle  ages 
come  to  an  end  at  different  dates  in  the  different  linos  of 
advance — manifestly  earlier  in  politics  and  economics 
than  upon  the  intellectual  side — a  fact  which  must  re- 
ceive more  detailed  attention  in  the  proper  place.  Each 
author  is  under  strong  temptation  to  select  for  the  close 
of  the  general  period  the  date  of  its  close  in  that  par- 
ticular field  in  which  he  is  especially  interested.  For  the 
purpose  of  the  present  sketch  the  date  1520  must  be 
chosen,  because,  although  upon  the  political  side  tlio 
whole  Reformation  period  is  clearly  in  the  full  current  of 
modem  international  politics,  still,  in  other  directions,  it 
just  as  plainly  marks  the  transition  from  medieval  to 
modern  times,  and  so  fixes  the  completion  for  the  whole 


4  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

round  of  civilization  of  the  period  whicli  we  are  espe- 
cially to  study. 

This  period  is  one,  then,  of  something  more  than  a 
thousand  years,  lying  roughly  between  the  dates  476  and 
1520.  It  is  an  exceedingly  important  period  to  study 
for  the  purpose  of  gainmg  a  conception  of  the  greater 
movements  of  history  as  a  whole,  because,  coming  as  an 
age  of  transition  between  two  ages  of  greater  apparent 
advance,  its  opening  conditions  cannot  be  understood 
without  considerable  knowledge  of  the  results  of  an- 
cient history,  and  its  closing  age  carries  us  so  far  into 
the  current  of  modern  history  that  we  necessarily  gain 
some  idea  of  the  forces  which  determine  its  direction, 
and  thus  the  whole  course  of  history  is,  to  a  considerable 
extent,  covered  by  any  careful  study  of  its  middle  period. 
In  order  to  obtain  such  a  view  as  this  it  will  be  a  neces- 
sary part  of  our  plan  to  look  somewhat  in  detail  at  the 
situation  of  things  in  the  last  age  of  ancient  history,  and 
also  in  the  opening  age  of  modern  history,  though  some- 
what less  fully,  because  its  character  and  conditions  are 
more  familiar  to  us. 

This  period  is  also  a  long  one  in  the  life  of  the  race — 
somewhere  near  a  third  of  its  recorded  history.  It  must 
be  in  itself  important,  and  in  order  to  understand  it  thor- 
oughly we  must  first  of  all  obtain  as  clear  a  conception 
as  possible  of  its  place  in  the  general  history  of  the 
world. 

We  have,  already  very  briefly  indicated  what  its  char- 
acter is.  \V^  is  a  transition  age.  Lying,  as  it  does,  between 
two  ages,  in  each  of  which  there  is  an  especially  rapid 
advance  of  civilization,  it  is  not  itself  primarily  an  age 
of  progress.  As  compared  with  either  ancient  or  mod- 
ern history,  the  additions  which  were  made  during  the 
middle  ages  to  the  common  stock  of  civilization  are  few 
and  unimportant.     Absolutely,  perhaps,  they  are  not  so. 


INTRODUCTION  0 

We  shall  be  able  by  the  time  our  work  is  finished  to 
make  a  considerable  catalogue  of  things  which  have  been 
gained  during  these  centuries  in  the  way  of  institutions, 
and  of  ideas,  and  of  positive  knowledge.  But  the  most 
important  of  them  fall  within  the  last  part  of  the  period, 
and  they  are  really  indications  that  the  age  is  drawing  to 
a  close,  and  a  new  and  different  one  coming  on.  Prog- 
ress, however  much  there  may  have  been,  is  not  its  dis- 
tinctive characteristic. 

There  is  a  popular  recognition  of  this  fact  in  the  gen- 
eral opinion  that  the  medieval  is  a  very  barren  and  unin- 
teresting period  of  history — the  "dark  ages" — so  confused 
and  without  evident  plan  that  its  facts  are  a  mere  dis- 
organized jumble,  impossible  to  reduce  to  system  or  to 
hold  in  mind.  This  must  be  emphatically  true  for  every 
one,  unless  there  can  be  fgund  running  through  all  its 
confusion  some  single  line  of  evolution  which  will  give  it 
meaning  and  organization.  If  we  can  discover  what  was 
the  larger  general  work  which  had  to  be  done  dui'ing  this 
period  for  the  civilization  of  the  world,  then  we  shall  find 
the  smaller  details — the  individual  steps  in  the  doing 
of  that  work — falling  into  place,  becoming  systematic, 
and  orderly,  and  easy  to  remember.  And  most  certainly 
there  must  be  some  such  general  meaning  of  the  age.  .The 
orderly  and  regular  progress  of  history  makes  it  impos- 
sible that  it  should  be  otherwise.  "Whether  that  meaning 
can  be  correctly  stated  or  not,  is  much  more  uncertain.  It 
is  the  difficulty  of  doing  this  which  makes  medieval  his- 
tory seem  so  comparatively  barren  a  period. 

The  most  evident  general  meaning  of  the  age  is  that 
which  has  been  hinted  at  above.  It  is  assimilation. 
The  greatest  work  which  had  to  be  done  was  to  bring 
the  German  barbarian,  who  had  taken  possession  of  the 
ancient  world  and  become  everywhere  the  ruling  race,  up 
to  such  a  level  of  attainment  and  understanding  that  he 


6  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

would  be  able  to  take  up  the  work  of  civilization  where 
antiquity  had  been  forced  to  suspend  it  and  go  on  with  it 
from  that  point. 

Progress  had  ceased  in  the  ancient  world.  Having 
brought  civilization  up  to  a  certain  point,  the  classical 
peoples  seem  to  have  been  able  to  carry  it  no  further. 
Even  in  those  fields  where  the  most  remarkable  results 
had  been  attained,  as  in  that  of  the  Roman  law,  nothing 
further  seemed  to  be  possible,  except  to  work  over  the 
old  results  into  new  forms.  Only  in  a  single  line,  and 
that  more  or  less  in  opposition  to  the  general  society  of 
which  it  formed  a  part — only  in  the  Christian  church 
— was  there  any  evidence  of  energy  and  hopeful  life. 
The  creative  power  of  antiquity  seems  to  have  been  ex- 
hausted. 

But  in  this  statement  the  word  seems  must  be  made 
emphatic.  We  have  no  right  whatever  to  assert  dogma- 
tically that  it  was  so.  The  analogy  between  the  life  of  a 
man  and  the  life  of  a  race — childhood,  middle  life,  old 
age,  death— is  an  attractive  one,  but  it  is  necessary  to  re- 
member that  it  is  the  merest  analogy,  without  any  sup- 
port in  facts.  History  gives  us  no  clear  case  of  any 
nation  perishing  from  old  age.  It  is  altogether  probable 
that  if  the  Eomau  world  had  been  left  to  itself — had  not 
been  conquered  and  taken  possession  of  by  a  foreign 
race — it  would  in  time  have  recovered  its  productive 
power  and  begun  a  new  age  of  advance.  Some  early  in- 
stances of  revived  strength,  as  under  Constantine  and 
Theodosius,  show  the  possibility  of  this.  The  Eastern 
Roman  Empire,  under  far  less  favorable  conditions  than 
the  Western  would  have  had,  did  do  this  later  to  a  limited 
extent.  The  West  would  certainly  have  accomplished 
.much  more. 

But  the  opportunity  was  not  to  be  granted  it.  Ever 
since  the  days  of  the  fii'st  Caesar  the  Germans  had  been 


mTKODUCTION  7 

trying  to  force  their  way  to  the  west  and  south.  Watch- 
ing for  any  unguarded  point,  attacking  with  constantly 
increasing  boldness  and  frequency,  as  the  power  of  resist- 
ance declined,  they  finally  found  the  empii-e  too  weak  to 
repel  them  any  longer,  and  breaking  through  the  outer 
shell  had  every  thing  their  o^vn  way.  They  took  posses- 
sion of  the  whole  Western  Empire.  Province  after  prov- 
ince passed  into  their  hands.  Everywhere  they  over- 
threw the  existing  government  and  set  up  kingdoms  of 
their  own,  some  of  them  short-lived  and  crude,  others 
full  of  promise  and  of  longer  continuance,  but  every- 
where they  became  the  ruling  race — the  Eoman  was  the 
subject. 

But  if  they  were  physically  the  stronger  race,  and 
gifted  with  some  legal  and  political  notions  worthy  to 
join  with  those  of  the  Romans  in  equal  partn^if >v^;. 
they  were  in  other  regards  rude  and  barbarous — chiidren 
in  knowledge  and  understanding — in  the  actual  point 
of  civilization  which  they  had  reached  by  themselves, 
scarcely,  if  indeed  at  all,  above  the  level  of  the  best  tribes 
of  North  American  Indians.  In  capacity  for  civiliza- 
tion, in  their  ability  to  meet  a  corrupt  civilization  of  a 
higher  grade  than  their  own,  and  not  be  permanently 
injured  by  it — though  certainly  some  of  the  best  of  them, 
the  Franks,  for  instance,  seem  to  have  had  quite  as  great 
a  capacity  for  absorbing  the  bad  as  the  good — ^in  the 
rapidity  with  which  they  responded  to  the  stimulus  of 
new  ideas  and  experiences  they  were  apparently  superior 
even  to  the  Cherokee."  Yet  in  very  many  ways — in  ideas, 
in  dress,  in  habits  and  ways  of  living,  in  methods  of 

'  It  is  perhaps  hardly  fair  to  the  Cherokee  to  demand  that  he  should 
have  made  as  much  progress  in  one  hundred  years  as  the  Franks  did  in 
three  hundred,  and  when  one  examines  the  facts  impartially  it  is  by  no 
means  so  clear  that  he  is  not  equalling  the  German  rate  of  advance,  and 
greatly  surpassing  it,  as  indeed  he  ought. 


8  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

warfare  and  diplomacy — the  parallel  is  very  close  and  11 
teresting/  and  if  we  can  imagine  a  civilized  land  taken 
possession  of  by  bands  of  warriors  not  materially  above 
the  best  of  our  Indians  in  actual  attainment,  though 
superior  to  them  in  spirit  and  in  moral  tone,  the  picture 
will  not  be  far  wrong. 

They  were  filled  with  wonder  at  the  evidences  of  skill 
and  art  which  they  saw  on  all  sides,  but  they  did  not 
understand  them  and  they  could  not  use  them.  The 
story  of  the  German  warrior  who,  astonished  at  seeing 
ducks  apparently  swimming  on  the  floor  of  the  ante- 
chamber in  which  he  was  waiting,  dashed  his  battle-axe 
at  the  beautiful  mosaic  to  see  if  they  were  living,  is  thor- 
oughly typical  of  the  whole  age.  Much  they  destroyed 
through  ignorance,  and  much  in  merely  childish  or  savage 
moods.  Much  more  was  forgotten  and  disappeared  be- 
cause no  one  any  longer  cared  for  it  or  demanded  its  use. 
Ai*t,  which  had  long  been  slowly  dying,  at  last  perished. 
Science,  no  longer  of  interest  to  any  one,  disappeared. 
The  knowledge  of  the  Greek  language  was  forgotten, 
almost  the  knowledge  of  the  Latin.  Skill  of  handicraft 
was  lost.  Eoads  and  bridges  fell  out  of  repair.  Inter- 
communication became  difiicult  ;  commerce  declined. 
Few  common  ideas  and  interests  were  left  to  bind  the 
different  parts  of  the  empire,  or  even  of  a  province,  to- 
gether. The  new  governments  were  rarely  able  to  en- 
force obedience  everywhere,  and  often  hardly  cared  to 
try.  Crimes  of  violence  became  common.  Force  reigned 
where  law  and  order  had  been  supreme,  and  life  and 
property  were  far  less  secure  than  they  had  been." 

'  For  a  description  of  some  of  tliese  particulars  see  the  imaginary  capt- 
ure of  a  Roman  frontier  town  by  a  German  band,  in  Dabn's  novelette, 
Felicitas.  For  some  others,  see  the  account  of  the  Saxon  wars  of  Charle- 
magne, in  Emerton's  Introduction  to  the  Middle  Ages,  Chap.  XIII. 

^  A  very  interesting  comparison  could  be  made  of  the  successive 
changes  of  condition  in  Gaul  by  reading  together  passages  from  Caesar, 


INTRODUCTION  9 

It  is  not  strange  that  these  things  happened,  or  that 
the  ages  which  followed  them  should  seem  to  be  dark  ages. 
How  could  it  possibly  be  otherwise  ?  Upon  a  society  in 
which  the  productive  force  was  already  declining — a 
decaying  and  weakening  civilization — came  a  mighty 
deluge  of  ignorance,  an  army  of  barbarians,  to  take  con- 
trol •  of  everything,  thinking  of  nothing  beyond  the 
physical  life  of  the  moment,  knowing  nothing  of  art  or 
science  or  skill,  and  caring  nothing  for  them.  How 
could  these  things  be  preserved  under  such  conditions 
as  a  part  of  the  conscious  possession  of  men  ?  The  de- 
cline, which  had  begun  before  the  Germans  came,  must 
now  go  on  still  more  rapidly  until  everything  seemed  to 
be  forgotten.  The  whole  western  world  fell  back  into  a 
more  primitive  stage  of  civilization  which  it  had  once 
passed  by,  and  became  more  material,  ignorant,  and 
superstitious  than  it  had  been.  It  would  have  required 
a  greater  miracle  than  is  anywhere  recorded  to  have  kept 
alive  in  the  general  population  of  the  west  the  civiliza- 
tion of  Greece  and  Rome  during  such  times,  for  it  would 
have  required  the  reconstruction  of  human  nature  and 
the  modification  of  all  historical  laws. 

The  larger  part  of  all  that  the  ancient  world  had 
gained  seemed  to  be  lost.  But  it  was  so  in  aj)pearance 
only.  Almost,  if  not  quite,  every  achievement  of  the 
Greeks  and  the  Romans  in  thought,  in  science,  in  law,  in 
the  practical  arts,  is  now  a  part  of  our  civilization,  either 
among  the  tools  of  our  daily  life  or  in  the  long-forgotten 

like  I.,  17,  18,  VI.,  11-15,  and  others,  to  show  the  state  of  the  province 
as  he  found  it ;  the  letters  of  Sidonius  ApoUinaris,  just  on  the  eve  of  the 
conquest— transLated  in  Hodgkin,  Italy  and  Her  Invaders,  Vol.  II.,  pp. 
321-352 — to  show  what  must  have  heen  it.'^  condition  in  the  hest  days  of 
Roman  occupation  ;  and  the  story  of  Sicharius  in  Gregory  of  Tours,  VII., 
47,  and  IX.,  19 — condensed  in  Emerton's  Introduction  to  the  Middle  Ayes, 
pp.  85-87 — or  the  passage  translated  from  Gregory  at  p.  147  of  this 
book,  to  show  its  condition  u:;der  the  Franks. 


10  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

or  perliaps  disowned  foundation-stones  whicli  liave  dis- 
appeared from  siglit  because  we  have  built  some  more 
complete  structure  upon  them,  a  structure  which  could 
never  have  been  built,  however,  had  not  these  foun- 
dations first  been  laid  by  some  one.  All  of  real  value 
which  had  been  gained  was  to  be  preserved  in  the  world's 
permanent  civilization.  For  the  moment  it  seemed  lost, 
but  it  was  only  for  the  moment,  and  in  the  end  the  re- 
covery was  to  be  complete.  By  a  long  process  of  educa- 
tion, by  its  own  natural  growth,  under  the  influence  of 
the  remains  of  the  ancient  civilization,  by  no  means 
small  or  unimportant,  which  worked  eflectively  from  the 
very  first,  by  widening  experience  and  outside  stimulus, 
the  barbarian  society  which  resulted  from  the  conquest 
was  at  last  brought  up  to  a  level  from  which  it  could 
comprehend  the  classic  civilization,  at  least  to  a  point 
where  it  could  see  that  it  had  very  much  still  to  learn 
from  the  ancients,  and  then,  with  an  enthusiasm  which 
the  race  has  rarely  felt,  it  made  itself  master  in  a  genera- 
tion or  two  of  all  that  it  had  not  known  of  the  classic 
work — of  its  thought  and  art  and  science — and  from  the 
beginning  thus  secured,  advanced  to  the  still  more  mar- 
vellous achievements  of  modern  times. 

This  age  of  final  recovery — the  age  of  the  Kenaissance 
— marks  thus  the  completion  of  that  process  of  education 
— the  absorption  of  the  German  in  the  civilization  which 
he  had  conquered,  so  completely  that  he  is  able  to  take 
it  up  at  the  point  at  which  the  Greek  and  the  Eoman 
had  been  obliged  to  drop  it,  and  to  carry  it  on  to  still 
higher  results.  And  so  the  Renaissance  age  is  the  last 
age  of  medieval  history,  and  medieval  history  is  the 
history  of  that  education  and  absorption,  of  the  process 
by  which  the  German  was  brought  into  the  classical 
world,  and  by  whicli  out  of  the  two — the  Eoman  civiliza- 
tion and  the  German  energy  and  vigor  and  productive 


INTRODUCTION  11 

power,  and  new  ideas  and  institutions — a  new  organic 
unity  was  formed— modern  society.  This  was  the  prob- 
lem :  To  make  out  of  the  barbarized  sixth  centuiy,  stag- 
nant and  fragmentary,  with  little  common  life,  without 
ideals  or  enthusiasms,  the  fifteenth  centuiy  in  full  pos- 
session again  of  a  common  world  civilization,  keen, 
pushing,  and  enthusiastic.  This  was  what  the  middle 
ages  had  to  do,  and  this  was  what  they  did. 

It  was  a  slow  process.  It  occupied  nearly  the  whole 
of  a  thousand  years.  And  it  was  necessarily  slow. 
Eome  had  civilized  the  Celts  of  Gaul  and  made  thor- 
ough Komans  out  of  them  in  a  hundi-ed  years ;  but  in  the 
case  of  the  Germans  there  were  at  least  two  very  good 
reasons  why  no  such  speedy  work  could  be  done.  In 
the  fii'st  place,  they  were  the  conquering  race,  not  the 
conquered,  a  fact  which  made  enormous  difference.  It 
was  their  governments,  their  laws  and  institutions,  their 
ideas,  their  idioms  even,  which  were  imposed  upon  the 
Romans,  not  the  Roman  upon  them ;  and  although  the 
higher  civilization  of  their  subjects  began  its  work  upon 
them  at  once,  it  was  only  such  parts  of  it  as  especially 
impressed  them,  not  the  whole  round  of  it — ^\dth  much 
of  it,  indeed,  they  never  came  in  contact.  In  the  second 
place,  the  Rome  of  the  fifth  century  was  no  longer  the 
Rome  of  the  first.  Her  digestive  and  assimilating  power 
was  gone,  indeed  in  the  interval  the  process  had  even 
been  reversed,  and  she  had  herself  already  become  bar- 
barized, and  Germanized  also,  unable  to  resist  any  longer 
the  influence  of  the  constantly  increasing  number  of  bar- 
barians introduced  into  the  empire  through  her  armies 
and  her  slave-pens.  If  Rome  in  the  fifth  centmy,  char- 
acterized as  she  then  was,  had  conquered  Germany,  she 
could  hardly  have  Romanized  it  in  much  less  time  than 
was  actually  required. 

But  this  work,  however  slow,  began  at  once.     From 


12  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  moment  when  the  German  came  into  close  contact 
with  the  Roman,  whether  as  subject  or  as  master,  he  rec- 
ognized the  fact  that  there  was  something  in  the  Roman 
civilization  sujDerior  to  his  own,  and  he  did  not  consider 
it  beneath  him  to  borrow  and  to  learn,  in  the  majority  of 
cases,  no  doubt,  without  any  conscious  purpose,  some- 
times certainly  of  deliberate  intention.'  If  we  compare 
with  modern  times  the  amount  of  advance  made  in  the 
five  centuries  following  the  fifth,  it  certainly  seems  veiy 
like  "  a  cycle  of  Cathay ; "  but  if  we  judge  it  according  to 
the  conditions  of  the  time,  the  gain  was  really  large,  and 
the  amount  of  the  Roman  civilization  preserved  was 
greater  than  Ave  could  have  expected  theoretically.  AYe 
shall  see,  almost  before  the  political  system  gets  into  any 
settled  shape,  decided  improvement  in  knowledge,  and 
interest  in  science,  the  beginning  of  a  steady  progress 
which  never  ceases. 

Here,  then,  is  the  work  of  the  middle  ages.  To  •  the 
results  of  ancient  'history  were  to  be  added  the  ideas 
and  institutions  of  the  Germans  ;  to  the  enfeebled  Ro- 
man race  was  to  be  added  the  youthful  energy  and 
vigor  of  the  German.  Under  the  conditions  which  ex- 
isted this  union  could  not  be  made— a  harmonious  and 

'  Through  the  whole  course  of  history  the  Teutonic  race  has  been 
characterized,  above  most  other  races,  by  its  ability  to  adapt  itself  to  a 
changed  environment  and  to  become  in  a  short  time  completely  in  har- 
mony with  new  conditions.  It  is  this,  more  than  anj'thing  else,  which 
has  given  it  its  enormous  influence  over  modern  history.  Whetlif  r  it 
be  tlie  Teuton  in  the  Roman  empire,  or  the  Northman  in  France  or 
Sicily,  or  the  Dane,  or  Prussian,  or  Hollander  in  America,  in  every 
case,  in  a  surprisingly  short  time,  the  immigrant  has  become  as  thor- 
oughl}'  at  home  in  the  new  land  as  if  he  had  occupied  it  for  centuries, 
indistinguishable  indeed  from  the  native.  The  modern  German  of  the 
Fatherland  may  be  disposed  to  lament  that  language  and  special  race- 
features  disappear  so  quickly,  but  the  student  of  history  can  easily  see 
that  in  no  other  way  could  the  race  have  been,  as  it  has  been,  the  great 
cr«ative  power  of  modern  civilization. 


I  INTRODUCTION  13 

^homogeneous  Christendom  could  not  be  formed,  except 
through  centuries  of  time,  through  anarchy,  and  ignor- 
ance, and  superstition.  In  other  words,  the  work  of  the 
middle  ages  was  not  primarily  progress,  it  was  to  form 
the  organically  united  and  homogeneous  modern  world 
out  of  the  heterogeneous  and  often  hostile  elements 
which  the  ancient  world  supplied,  and  so  to  furnish  the 
essential  condition  for  an  advance  beyond  any  point  pos- 
sible to  the  ancients.  That  this  work  was  thoroughly  done 
the  nineteenth  century  abundantly  testifies.  It  will  be 
our  task  to  follow  its  accomplishment,  step  by  step,  from 
the  day  when  the  barbarian  warrior  supplanted  the  Greek 
philosopher  and  the  Komau  statesman,  until  we  reach 
the  full  tide  of  modern  progress. 


CHAPTER  II. 

WHAT  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  STARTED  WITH 

It  follows  from  what  has  been  said  in  the  introduction 
that  our  nineteenth-century  civilization  has  not  merely 
that  complexity  of  character  of  which  we  are  so  con- 
scious, but  also  that  it  is  complex  in  origin.  Its  dis- 
tinct elements  are  the  work  of  generations  widely  separ- 
ated from  one  another  in  time  and  space.  It  has  been 
brought  together  into  a  common  whole  from  a  thousand 
different  sources.  This  fact  is  very  familiar  as  regards 
the  work  of  historic  times.  We  recall  at  once  from  what 
different  ages  and  peoples  the  printing-press,  the  theory 
of  evolution,  the  representative  system,  the  Divine  Com- 
edy, entered  our  civilization  and  how  they  enriched  it. 
It  is  less  easy  to  realize  the  presence  there,  in  almost  un- 
changed form,  of  the  work  of  primitive  generations  who 
lived  before  the  possibility  of  record.  And  yet,  for  ex- 
ample, we  have  only  just  ceased  to  kindle  a  fire  and  to 
raise  wheat  after  methods  practically  identical  with  those 
of  the  primitive  man — the  modification  is  still  not  essen- 
tial— and  the  discovery  of  either  of  these  two  arts  was 
no  doubt  as  great  a  step  in  advance  at  the  time  wheu'jit 
was  made  as  any  the  world  has  since  taken.  The  snnie 
thing  may  be  said  in  a  slightly  modified  form  of  what  is 
in  some  of  our  States  the  unit  of  our  political  system — 
the  town-meeting. 

Of  the  sources  from  which  the  different  parts  of  our 


WHAT  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITH  15 

civilization  have  been  brought  together  in  historic  times 
there  are  four  which  greatly  exceed  in  importance  all 
the  others.  They  are  Greece,  Rome,  Christianity,  and 
the  Germans.  Many  separate  elements  have  come  from 
other  sources,  some  of  them  modifying  very  essentially 
our  ideas  or  institutions — the  alphabet  from  the  eastern 
end  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  philosophical  notions  from 
the  Tigris  valley,  mathematical  methods  fi'om  Hiudoo- 
stan.  But  so  far  as  we  yet  know,  leaving  o^e  side  what 
the  further  investigation  of  the  monuments  of  early 
peoples  may  have  to  teach  us,  except  the  four  mentioned, 
no  great  body  of  civilization,  the  entire  work  of  no 
people,  has  been  taken  up  into  our  civilization  as  one  of 
its  great  constituent  parts.  Should  we  attempt  to  make 
a  fifth  co-ordinate  with  these  four,  we  should  need  to 
group  together  the  separate  contributions  of  the  various 
oriental  nations  made  at  widely  separated  times  during 
the  whole  course  of  history  and  having  no  connection 
with  one  another.  But  the  work  of  the  Greeks  as  an  or- 
ganic whole  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  later  progress. 

Of  these  four,  three  had  been  brought  together  before 
the  close  of  ancient  history.  By  its  conquest  of  the  clas- 
sic world  Rome  had  added  the  Greek  civilization  to  its 
own,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  introduction  of  the 
ideas  and  influences  which  came  from  Christianity,  and 
from  these  three  sources,  in  the  main,  had  been  formed 
that  practically  uniform  civilization  which  the  Germans 
found  throughout  the  Roman  empire  when  they  took  pos- 
session of  it.  To  ascertain,  then,  what  the  middle  ages 
had  to  start  with,  and  the  contribution  of  the  ancient 
world  to  the  nineteenth  century,  it  is  necessary  to  ex- 
amine, though  as  briefly  as  possible,  the  results  of  Greek 
and  of  Roman  work  and  the  elements  introduced  by 
Christianity. 

The  contribution  of  Greece  comes  naturally  first  in 


16  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

order.  This  was  made,  we  may  say,  exclusively  in  the  de- 
partments of  literature  and  art,  philosophy  and  science. 
Other  work  of  hers  which  may  have  had  a  permanent  in- 
fluence is  comparatively  insignificant.  The  work  of  the 
Greeks  in  literature  and  art  is  too  well  known  to  need 
more  than  a  mention.  It  is  hardly  too  strong  to  say  that 
it  still  remains  the  richest  contribution  to  this  side  of  our 
civilization  made  by  any  people  in  the  coui'se  of  history ; 
and  it  is  very  easy  to  believe  that,  with  the  adoption  of 
more  appreciative  methods  of  study  in  our  schools,  it 
must  have  an  even  greater  influence  in  the  futm-e  than  it 
has  ever  had  in  the  past.  It  was  this  part  of  Greek  work 
more  than  any  other  which  made  the  conquest  of  the 
Roman  world,  so  that  even  those  parts  of  Latin  litera- 
ture which  must  be  considered  something  more  than 
mere  copies  of  the  Greek  are  still  deeply  tinged  with  the 
Greek  influence. 

But  the  Greek  mind  was  as  active  and  as  creative 
in  the  fields  of  philosophy  and  of  science  as  in  those 
of  literature  and  art.  Greek  thought  lies  at  the  foun- 
dation of  aU  modern  speculation,  and  Aristotle  and  Pla- 
to are  still  "  the  masters  of  those  who  know."  All  the 
great  problems  of  philosophy  were  directly  or  indi- 
rectly attacked  by  the  Greeks,  and  their  varying  solu- 
tions were  formed,  before  the  close  of  their  active  intel- 
lectual life,  into  finely  wrought  systems.  These  Greek 
systems  of  thought  furnished  the  Romans  with  their 
philosophical  beliefs,  and  deeply  affected  the  speculative 
theology  of  the  Christian  church,  and  a  few  brief  sen- 
tences from  one  of  them  furnished  the  starting-point  for 
the  endless  speculations  and  the  barren  ci^dl  wars  of  the 
Realists  and  Nominalists  in  the  later  middle  ages. 

Among  the  Greeks  philosophy  and  science  were  very 
closely  related  to  one  another.  The  philosopher  was  apt 
to  be  the  student  of  natural  and  physical  science  as  well, 


WHAT  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STAKTED   WITH  17 

and  it  was  thought  that  the  arrangement  of  the  universe 
and  the  component  elements  of  all  bodies  might  be  deter- 
mined bj  speculation.  This  was  especially  true  of  the 
early  periods  of  Greek  thinking.  It  is  characteristic  of 
all  early  thinking  that  it  turns  with  every  problem  to 
speculation  rather  than  to  investigation,  and  characteris- 
tic of  advancing  knowledge  that  it  is  constantly  enlarg- 
ing the  number  of  those  subjects  which,  it  is  clearly  seen, 
are  to  be  carried  to  a  real  solution  only  by  experiment 
and  observation. 

This  last  stage  of  knowledge  was  reached  by  the 
Greeks  more  or  less  completely  in  regard  to  a  great  va- 
riety of  subjects,  and  the  amount  and  character  of  their 
scientific  work  is  astonishing  considering  its  early  date. 
Their  favorite  lines  of  work  were  mathematics  and  the 
physical  sciences,  physics  and  astronomy,  and  they  made 
greater  advances  in  these  than  in  the  natural-history 
sciences,  like  zoology  and  botany.  This  scientific  work 
hardly  affected  the  Romans,  and  it  was  entirely  forgotten 
by  the  Christian  nations  of  the  West  during  the  middle 
ages  ;  but  when  modern  science  opened  in  the  Renais- 
sance age,  it  began  clearly  and  consciously  on  the  foun- 
dations laid  down  by  the  Greeks.  In  every  line  the  first 
step  was  to  find  out  what  the  ancients  had  known,  and 
then  to  begin  a  new  progress  from  the  point  which  they 
had  reached.  The  first  medical  lectures  were  comments 
on  the  Greek  text,  almost  as  much  philological  as  scien- 
tific, and  Copernicus's  first  step,  in  preparation  of  the 
scientific  revolution  which  he  -^Touglit,  was  to  search  the 
classics  for  a  theory  of  the  solar  system  different  from  the 
Ptolemaic.  This  is  true  of  all  the  sciences — of  those  in 
which  the  Greek  work  has  finally  been  thro^Ti  aside  as 
worthless,  as  of  those  in  which  it  still  forms  a  part.  The 
science  of  the  Greeks  was  no  doubt  in  many  cases  en- 
tirely mistaken  ;  but  these  mistakes  represent  in  all  prob- 
2 


18  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOIS^ 

ability  stages  of  inquiry  tlu'ougli  which  the  mind  had 
necessarily  to  pass  in  reaching  the  truth,  and  the  work 
of  the  Greeks,  though  mistaken,  was  a  positive  gain. 

So  brief  and  general  a  statement  can  give  no  idea  of 
the  marvellous  character  of  Greek  work,  miraculous  al- 
most considering  its  early  date,  the  smallness  of  the  land, 
and  the  few  generations  which  performed  it.  But  a  cor- 
rect appreciation  of  that  work  is  now  so  general  that  it 
may  suffice  for  the  present  pui-pose.' 

It  would  hardly  seem  necessary,  but  for  a  popular 
misconception,  to  add  to  this  accoimt  of  the  work  of  the 
Greeks  which  permanently  influenced  history,  the  nega- 
tive statement  that  none  of  this  work  was  political.  The 
history  of  the  Greek  republics  is  interesting  reading,  and 
it  seems  as  if  the  restless  activity  of  their  political  life 
ought  to  have  resulted  in  something  of  value  for  all  time  ; 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  did  not — unless  it  be  an  ex- 
ample of  warning.  The  Greeks  had  a  very  keen  interest 
in  politics — they  tried  all  sorts  of  j^olitical  experiments, 
and  they  show  us  an  immense  variety  of  jiolitical  forms. 
But  all  this  interest  was  intellectual  rather  than  practi-' 
cal.  It  was  the  keenness  of  the  competition,  the  excite- 
ment of   the  game,   which  had  the  greatest  charm  for 

'  This  appreciation  of  Greek  work  is  even  coming,  in  some  cases,  to 
express  itself  in  extravagant  forms.  Says  Reuan,  in  the  Preface  of  his 
History  of  Israel,  Vol.  I.:  "  The  framework  of  human  culture  created  by 
Greece  is  susceptible  of  indefinite  enlargement  but  it  is  complete  in  its 
several  parts.  Progress  will  consist  constantly  in  developing  what 
Greece  has  conceived,  in  executing  the  designs  which  she  has.  so  to 
speak,  traced  out  for  us,"  p.  i.  "I  will  even  add  that,  in  my  opinion, 
the  greatest  miracle  on  record  is  Greece  herself,"  p.  x.  Symonds  quotes, 
with  apparent  approval,  as  follows  :  "  A  writer  no  less  sober  in  his 
philosophy  than  eloquent  in  his  language  has  lately  asserted  that.  '  ex- 
cept the  blind  forces  of  nature,  nothing  moves  in  this  world  which  is 
not  Greek  in  its  origin.'" — Renvoi  of  Learning,  p.  112.  The  passage 
quoted  is  better  evidence,  certainly,  of  the  writer's  eloquence  than  of 
his  sobriety. 


WHAT   THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITH         19 

them,  and  tliej  went  into  the  assembly  to  decide  a  polit- 
ical question  in  very  much  the  same  spirit  in  which  they 
went  into  the  theatre  to  see  a  new  play.  Scarcely  a  state 
can  be  found  among  them  which  makes  a  real  success  of 
any  government,  and  in  the  histories  of  most  of  them 
revolutions  are  as  frequent  and  as  meaningless  as  any- 
where in  South  America.  They  were  not  a  creative  polit- 
ical people,  and  not  a  single  political  expedient  of  theirs 
was  a  permanent  contribution  to  the  institutional  life  of 
the  race,  as  was  the  imperial  government  of  the  Eomans, 
or  the  representative  system  of  the  English.'  In  the  sci- 
ence of  politics,  as  in  other  sciences,  the  Greeks  did  ex- 
traordinary work,  and  in  this  way  may  have  had  some 
influence,  untraceable  for  the  most  part,  on  the  minds  of 
statesmen  of  later  ages.  The  Politics  of  Aristotle  has 
been  called  as  modern  a  book  as  Euclid,  and  it  is  a  mod- 
ern book  for  precisely  the  reason  that  Euclid  is,  because 
it  is  a  thoroughly  inductive  study  based  upon  a  very 
wide  investigation  of  political  facts.  His  collection  of 
constitutions  for  study  numbered  one  hundred  and  fift}'- 
eight.  But  the  science  of  politics  and  the  creation  of 
workable  political  institutions  are  two  different  things." 

'  Even  federal  government  cannot  be  considered  an  exception  to  this 
statement.  As  a  part  of  the  world's  future  political  machinery  federal 
government  is  unquestionably  a  creation  of  the  United  States,  and 
wherever  else  in  history  the  federal  principle  may  have  been  in  use,  its 
growth  into  a  national  institution  to  be  employed  on  a  vastly  larger 
scale  than  ever  before,  is  too  plainly  a  natural  development  out  of  the 
peculiar  conditions  and  circumstances  of  our  colonial  governments  ever 
to  be  attributed  to  any  foreign  influence. 

'^  The  scholar  who  compares  carefully  the  Greek  constitutions  with 
the  Roman  will  undoubtedly  consider  the  former  to  be  finer  and  more 
finished  specimens  of  political  work.  The  imperfect  and  incomplete 
character  which  the  Roman  constitution  presents,  at  almost  any  point 
of  its  history,  the  number  of  institutions  it  exhibits  which  appear  to  be 
temporary  expedients  merely,  are  necessary  results  of  its  method  of 
growth  to  meet  demands  as  they  rose  from  time  to  time  ;  they  are  evi- 
dences, indeed,  of  its  highly  practical  character. 


20  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

When  we  tui-n  to  the  work  of  Kome  we  are  struck  with 
the  contrast  which  it  presents  to  that  of  Greece.  It 
would  seem  as  if  each  people  of  the  ancient  world  had 
had  its  special  line  of  work  to  accomplish,  and,  doing 
this,  had  not  been  able  to  do  anything  beyond.  At  all 
events,  Home  was  strong  where  Greece  was  weak,  and 
weak  where  Greece  was  strong.  Her  work  was  political 
and  legal,  scarcely  at  all  artistic  or  intellectual.  We 
could  not  well  afford  to  be  without  the  Latin  literature. 
In  some  departments — lyric  poetry  and  history,  for  in- 
stance— it  is  of  a  distinctly  high  order.  It  presents  us 
fine  specimens  of  elegance  and  polish,  and  there  \vill 
probably  always  be  those  who  will  consider  these  the 
most  important  literary  qualities,  as  there  will  always  be 
those  who  rank  Pope  among  the  greatest  of  poets.  But 
as  compared  with  the  Greek,  Latin  literature  lacks  orig- 
inality, depth,  and  power.  The  ancients  themselves  were 
not  without  a  more  or  less  conscious  feeling  of  this  con- 
trast, and  while  Latin  literature  is  saturated  with  the  in- 
fluences of  Greek  thought,  scarcely  a  single,  if  indeed 
any  instance  can  be  found  until  the  very  last  days  of 
Greek  literature,  in  which  a  Greek  author  appears  con- 
scious of  the  existence  of  a  Latin  literature. 

The  same  things  could  be  said  even  more  strongly  of 
Roman  art  and  science,  but  perhaps  Eoman  philosophy 
exhibits  better  than  anything  else  the  contrast  between 
the  two  peoples.  There  was  no  original  Roman  phi- 
losophy. The  Roman  simply  thought  over  into  other 
forms  the  results  which  the  Greeks  had  reached.  A 
good  example  of  this  is  that  sort  of  eclectic  philoso- 
phizing so  familiar  to  us  in  the  works  of  Cicero — a 
rhetorical  popularizing  of  Avhat  seemed  to  him  the  best 
in  Greek  thinking  without  any  original  speculation  of  his 
own,  at  its  best  nothing  more  than  a  sympatlietic  com- 
ment or  paraphrase.     This  difference  between  the  two 


WHAT  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITH  21 

races  is  seen  still  more  clearly  in  that  form  of  Greek 
philosophy  which  the  Romans  cultivated  with  especial 
fondness,  and  in  which  they  produced  two  such  famous 
names  as  Seneca  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  It  was  the  in- 
tensely ethical  character  of  Stoicism  which  attracted 
them,  with  its  ideal  of  strong  manhood  and  its  princii^les 
so  naturally  applicable  to  the  circumstances  in  which  a 
cultivated  Koman  found  himself  under  the  early  empire. 
And  it  was  on  this  purely  practical  side  that  the  Eoman 
cultivated  Stoicism.  He  praised  virtue  in  earnest  phrases, 
he  exhorted  himself  and  other  people  to  right  living,  he 
tried  to  make  it  a  missionary  philosophy  and  to  bring  its 
guidance  and  support  to  the  help  of  men  in  general,  he 
turned  its  abstract  formulas  into  specific  precepts  of  law, 
but  he  did  not  develop  it  as  a  science  or  a  philosojjhy. 
The  whole  Eoman  mind  was  practical  and  not  at  all 
aesthetic  or  speculative. 

And  it  was  on  this  practical  side  that  the  Roman  mind 
found  its  mission.  The  great  work  of  Rome  for  the 
world  was  political  and  legal.  Whatever  rank  we  give 
to  Greece  for  its  literature,  we  must  give  an  equally  high 
rank  to  Rome  for  the  results  of  its  genius  for  government. 
If  it  may  be  true,  as  is  sometimes  said,  that  in  the  course 
of  history  there  is  no  literature  which  rivals  the  Greek 
except  the  English,  it  is  perhaps  even  more  true  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  is  the  only  race  which  can  be  placed  beside 
the  Roman  in  creative  power  in  law  and  politics.  A 
somewhat  detailed  examination  of  the  work  which  Rome 
did  in  this  direction  is  demanded  because  the  foundation 
fact  of  all  modern  civilization  is  the  Roman  empire,  or 
more  accurately,  perhaps,  it  is  the  external  framework 
of  all  later  history. 

The  opportunity  to  exert  such  an  imi:)ortant  political 
influence  came  to  Rome,  of  course,  as  a  result  of  her 
military  successes   and  her  wide  conquests  ;  but  these 


22  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOlSr 

are  themselves  not  tlie  least  of  the  evidences  of  her  rul- 
ing genius.  It  was  an  opportunity  which  none  but  a 
great  political  people  could  have  created,  or  could  have 
used  to  any  good  purpose  when  it  came  to  them.  E-ome's 
conquests  were  not  mere  military  occupations.  After  a 
generation  or  two  the  peoples  which  had  most  stubbornly 
resisted  her  advance  had  become  Roman,  those  of  them 
at  least  who  were  not  already  in  possession  of  a  civiliza- 
tion as  high  as  her  own.  From  the  very  beginning  of 
her  career,  in  tlio  absorption  of  the  little  rival  city  states 
around  her  in  Italy,  she  treated  her  subjects  as  friends 
and  not  as  conquered  enemies.  She  allowed  the  utmost 
local  independence  and  freedom  of  self-government  pos- 
sible under  her  strong  control  of  all  general  affairs.  She 
did  not  interfere  with  local  prejudices  or  superstitions 
where  they  were  not  harmful  to  the  common  good.  She 
knew  how  to  make  her  subjects  understand  that  her  in- 
terests were  identical  with  theirs,  and  that  their  best  good 
was  to  be  found  in  strengthening  her  power,  as  Hannibal 
discovered  to  his  cost.  She  opened  the  line  of  promo- 
tion and  success  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  their  own 
locality  to  ambitious  spirits  throughout  the  provinces. 
Balbus,  a  Spaniard,  was  consul  in  Rome  forty  years  be- 
fore the  Christian  era.  She  made  no  conscious  attempt 
anywhere  to  Romanize  the  provincials,  nor  any  use  of 
violent  methods  to  mould  them  into  a  common  race ; 
but  she  thoroughly  convinced  them  by  reasonable  evi- 
dence, by  its  constant  presence  and  its  beneficial  results, 
of  the  superiority  of  her  civilization  to  theirs.  She  won 
them  completely  by  the  peace  and  good  order  which  she 
everywhere  kept,  by  the  decided  advantages  of  a  common 
language,  a  common  law,  common  commercial  arrange- 
ments, a  uniform  coinage,  vastly  improved  means  of  in- 
tercommunication, and  by  no  means  least  of  all,  by  com- 
mon treatment  for  the  men  of  every  race.     The  literature 


WHAT   THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED    WITH         23 

and  the  inscriptions  give  us  abundant  evidence  of  the 
affectionate  regard  in  which  this  Roman  rule  was  held  in 
every  quarter.  That  such  good  government  was  without 
exceptions  is  certainly  not  maintained,  and  it  gradually 
changes  into  a  bad  government  as  time  goes  on;  but  even 
where  Rome's  rule  was  least  favorable  to  the  subject,  it 
was,  until  the  last  age,  much  better  than  the  conditions 
which  had  anywhere  preceded  it,  and  the  work  of  Ro- 
mauization  was  completed  before  it  became  anywhere  a 
serious  evil. 

The  result  of  such  a  policy  was  speedily  apparent.  It 
was  a  process  of  absorption  into  a  common  Roman  race 
willingly  undergone  by  the  provincial.  If  there  was  any 
conscious  effort  to  bring  about  such  a  result  it  was  on  the 
part  of  the  provincial,  not  on  that  of  the  government, 
and  he  certainly  made  no  conscious  effort  to  prevent 
it.  And  this  was  a  genuine  absorption,  not  a  mere  con- 
tented and  quiet  living  under  a  foreign  government.  The 
local  dress,  religion,  manners,  family  names,  language 
and  literature,  political  and  legal  institutions,  and  race 
pride  almost  or  entirely  disappeared,  did  disappear  for 
all  except  the  lowest  classes,  and  everything  became 
Roman — became  really  Roman,  so  that  neither  they  nor 
the  Romans  of  blood  ever  felt  in  any  way  the  difference 
of  descent,  as  we  never  do  in  the  case  of  the  thoroughly 
Americanized  German,  whose  family  name  alone  betrays 
his  origin.  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Africa  have  all  been  called 
more  Roman  than  Rome  itself.  Some  of  the  provinces 
possessed  schools  of  rhetoric,  that  is,  training  in  the  use 
of  the  Latin  tongue,  so  famous  that  they  were  sought  by 
pupils  from  all  parts  of  the  empire.  Gaal  furnished 
some  of  the  most  celebrated  grammarians  of  the  Latin 
language,  and  that  distinguished  Spanish  family  must 
not  be  forgotten  which  gave  the  two  Senecas  and  Lucan 
to  Latin  literature,  and  the  proconsul  Gallio  to  Christian 


24  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

history,  iu  the  incident  recorded  in  the  Acts,  which 
ilhistrates  so  strikingly  the  attitude  of  the  cultured 
Roman  toward  the  earliest  Christianity.  In  political 
life  the  case  of  Balbus  has  been  mentioned.  Before  the 
first  century  closed  another  Spaniard — Nerva — had  be- 
come emperor,  and  as  time  went  on  the  emperors  were, 
more  and  more  frequently,  drawn  from  the  provincials. 
In  the  days  when  the  empire  was  falling  to  pieces,  and 
local  commanders  were  taking  advantage  of  their  military 
strength  to  make  themselves  independent  rulers,  nowhere 
was  there  any  return  to  an  earlier  national  autonomy, 
but  everywhere  the  commander  became  a  Roman  emper- 
or, and  reproduced,  as  perfectly  as  circumstances  would 
admit,  the  Roman  arrangements,  court  forms,  officials, 
senate,  and  even  coinage,  and,  more  surprising  still,  in 
the  very  last  days  of  the  empire  some  of  its  most  earnest . 
and  devoted  defenders  against  their  own  race  were  Ger- 
mans, or  of  German  descent. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multijoly  evidences  of  the  complete- 
ness of  this  Romanization,  but  perhaps  language  forms 
the  best  example  of  all,  because  it  is  one  of  the  things 
which  a  race  trying  to  maintain  a  separate  existence 
would  most  consciously  strive  to  retain,  as  witness  the 
Welsh  of  to-day,  and  because  the  evidence  remains  clear 
to  our  own  time,  in  the  speech  of  modern  Europe,  that 
the  national  languages  passed  out  of  use  and  Latin  be- 
came the  universal  language  fi'om  the  mouth  of  the 
Douro  to  the  mouth  of  the  Danube.  Not  that  this  hap- 
pened for  every  man.  In  the  remoter  country  districts 
and  among  the  lowest  classes  the  national  language  long 
remained  as  a  local  dialect.  In  some  of  the  most  inac- 
cessible parts  the  national  speech  permanently  survived, 
as  among  the  Basques  and  in  Brittany.  BiTt  Latin  be- 
came the  iiniversal  language  of  all  the  well-to-do  classes 
Nor   was   this   change   brought   about  because   anyone 


WHAT   THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITH         25 

consciously  dropped  the  use  of  his  native  language  and 
adopted  Latin  in  its  place.  It  simply  became  a  very 
great  convenience  for  all  the  ordinary  purposes  of  life  for 
everybody  to  know  the  Latin  in  addition  to  his  native 
tongue.  He  learned  it  Avith  no  expectation  of  giving  up 
his  own,  and  doubtless  for  a  generation  or  two  the  two 
languages  would  go  on  side  by  side  as  generally  spoken 
languages,  and  the  local  speech  would  only  gradually  be- 
come unfashionable  and  disappear.  Indeed  in  some 
cases,  as  for  example  in  the  Punic  of  north  Africa,  we 
know  that  a  very  considerable  literary  activity  continued 
in  the  local  language  after  Latin  had  become  universally 
spoken.' 

In  one  part  of  the  empire  there  is  an  apparent  exception 
to  this  absorption  of  the  native  races  into  the  Roman. 
In  the  eastern  half  of  the  ancient  world  another  lan- 
guage had  become  universal  and  another  civilization  al- 
most as  prevalent  as  the  Roman  in  the  west.  The  histor- 
ical reason  for  this  is  familiar.  At  the  time  when  the 
political  life  of  Greece  proper  was  reaching  its  lowest 
decline  came  the  Grecized  Macedonian,  and  with  the 
military  superiority  of  the  Greek  soldier  constnicted 
a  great  oriental  empire,  and,  although  this  empire  was 
scarcely  at  all  Greek  in  its  political  or  institutional  life — 
was,  indeed,  in  many  ways  the  exact  opposite  of  anything 
which  the  genuine  Greek  political  life  could  have  produced 
— yet  the  great  superiority  of  the  Greek  intellectual  civil- 
ization, and  the  fact  that  Greek  was  the  language  of  the 
government  and  of  the  ruling  class  made  the  Greek  lan- 
guage and  Greek  ideas  universal."    These  were  thoroughly 

'  Schiller  :  Kamrzelt.,  Vol.  I.,  p.  887. 

^  The  New  Testament  is  a  familiar  proof  of  this  in  the  matter  of 
language.  Such  passages  as  Acts  xiv.  11.  and  xxii.  2,  are  cited  as  in- 
dicating, in  a  ver}'  interesting  way,  how  the  native  language  continued 
afi  a  dialect  alongside  the  universal  language. 


26  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

established  throughout  the  East  at  the  time  of  the  Eoman 
conquest,  so  that  Rome  came  in  contact  there  with  a 
universal  civilization  as  high  as  her  own.  Naturally  it 
retained  its  place.  Except  politically  Rome  had  noth- 
ing to  offer  the  East,  and  there  was  not  that  need  of  a 
unifying  and  assimilating  work  there  which  Rome  had 
performed  in  the  West.  But  politically  Rome  had  much 
to  offer,  and  her  political  influence  became  as  decided 
and  as  permanent  in  the  East  as  i]i  the  West.  Law  and 
governmental  institutions  and  forms  became  entirely 
Roman.  Latin  became  the  language  of  government  and 
law  and  remained  so  until  the  end  of  the  sixth  century. 
In  Greek  compeudimns  and  translations  the  legislation  of 
Justinian  remained  the  basis  of  the  law  of  the  later  East- 
ern Empire.  Even  when  so  distant  a  portion  of  the  Ro- 
man dominion  as  Palmyra  attempted,  in  the  third  cen- 
tury, to  found  a  new  oriental  state,  it  did  it  under 
political  forms  that  were  Roman/  and  the  subjects  of 
the  modern  Turkish  Empire  have  had  no  reason  to  rejoice 
in  what  their  rulers  learned  of  the  Romans  in  the  matter 
of  taxation.  The  exception  presented  by  the  East  to  the 
universal  Romanization  of  the  ancient  world  is  more  ap- 
parent than  real. 

In  this  power  of  assimilation  the  Roman  presented,  as 
has  already  been  suggested,  a  marked  contrast  to  the 
Greek.  Athens  had  offered  her,  in  the  confederacy  of 
Delos,  the  same  opportunity  w^hich  came  to  Rome. 
Sparta  had  it  again  after  the  Peloponnesian  War.  The 
difficulties  in  the  way  were  but  little  greater  than  those 
which  confronted  Rome  in  Italy ;  but  neither  Greek  state 
was  able  to  take  any  step  toward  a  real  consolidation  of 
Greece,  and  the  empires  of  both  fell  to  pieces  at  the  first 
opportunity.  This  difference,  and  even  the  reasons  for  it, 
were  so  obvious  that  they  did  not  escape  the  notice  of 
'  Schiller  :  Kaiserzcit,  Vol.  I.,  p.  887. 


WHAT  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITH         27 

the  observers  of  those  times.  The  remarkable  speech 
which  Tacitus,  in  the  twenty-foui'th  chapter  of  the 
Eleventh  Book  of  the  Annals,  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Emperor  Claudius  illustrates  so  many  of  the  points 
which  have  just  been  discussed,  as  well  as  this,  that  I 
venture  to  insert  a  portion  of  it.  The  question  having 
arisen  as  to  the  admission  of  Gauls  into  the  senate,  and 
various  arguments  being  advanced  against  it,  Claudius 
said :  "  My  own  ancestors,  the  most  remote  of  whom, 
Clausus,  though  of  Sabine  origin,  was  adopted  into  the 
number  of  the  Eomau  citizens,  and  also  of  the  patricians, 
exhort  me  to  follow  the  same  plan  in  managing  the  state, 
and  transfer  to  oui'selves  whatever  there  may  be  any- 
where that  is  good.  For  I  remember  that  we  had  the 
Julii  from  Alba,  ....  and,  not  to  mention  every 
ancient  case,  from  Etruria  and  Lucania  and  all  Italy 
men  were  received  into  the  senate,  and  finally  even  from 
as  far  as  the  Alps,  and  this,  too,  was  not  done  for  single 
men  alone,  but  lands  and  races  became  one  with  us  and 
our  state  grew  strong  and  flourished.  .  .  .  Are  we 
sorry  that  the  Balbi  came  to  us  from  Spain,  or  men  not 
less  distinguished  from  Gallia  Narbonensis  ?  Their  pos- 
terity are  still  with  us,  nor  do  they  yield  to  us  in  love  for 
this  fatherland.  Was  anything  else  the  ruin  of  the  Lace- 
daemonians and  Athenians,  though  they  were  strong  in 
arms,  than  that  they  held  off  from  them  as  aliens  those 
whom  they  had  conquered?  But  Romulus,  the  founder 
of  our  city,  was  so  wise  that  upon  the  same  day  he  treated 
many  people  first  as  enemies  and.  then  as  citizens.  For- 
eigners have  ruled  over  us,  and  to  intrust  the  magistra- 
cies to  the  sons  of  freedmen  is  not,  as  many  think,  a 
''recent  thing,  but  was  frequently  done  in  former  times." ' 

'  Still  earlier,  a  Greek,  Dionysius  of  Halicarnasseus,  in  his  Roman 
Antiquities,  Book  II.,  Chapters  XVI.  and  XVII.,  after  describing  the 
treatment  of  their  subjects  by  the  Romans,  which  had  "  not  a  little 


28  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

This  subject  deserves  even  fuller  statement  and  illus- 
tration because  it  was  by  means  of  this  thorough  E-oman- 
ization  of  the  world  that  the  work  of  Rome  obtained  its 
decided  and  permanent  influence  on  all  later  history. 
Without  this  it  must  have  perished.  It  was  the  com- 
pleteness of  this  assimilation  w^hich  fixed  the  Eoman 
ideas  so  firmly  in  the  minds  of  all  her  subjects  that  the 
later  flood  of  German  barbarism,  which  swept  over  the 
empire,  was  not  able  to  obliterate  them,  but  must  even, 
in  the  end,  yield  itself  to  their  influence. 

But  this  is  by  no  means  the  only  important  result 
which  followed  from  the  unity  which  Rome  established 
in  the  ancient  world.  Most  ob^■iously  Rome  gave  to  all 
the  West  a  higher  civilization  than  it  had  had.  She 
placed  the  provinces,  within  a  generation  or  two,  in  a 
position  which  it  would  have  taken  them  centuries  of 
unaided  development  to  reach.  This  is  very  clear,  for 
instance,  in  the  matter  of  government  and  order,  to  any 
reader  of  Caesar's  Gallic  War.  And  so  it  was  upon  every 
side  of  civilization. 

This  empire  also  held  back  the  German  conquest  for 
three  centuries  or  more.  That  process  of  armed  migra- 
tion which  the  Cimbri  and  Teutones  foreshadowed  at  the 
end  of  the  second  century  B.C.,   and   which    Ariovistus 

contributed  to  raise  them  to  the  empire  tliey  have  acquired,"  says  : 
"  When  I  compare  the  customs  of  the  Greeks  with  these,  I  can  find  no 
reason  to  extol  either  those  of  the  Lacedfemonians,  or  of  the  Thebans, 
or  even  of  the  Athenians,  who  value  themselves  the  most  for  their  wis- 
dom ;  all  who,  jealous  of  their  nobility  and  communicating  to  none  or  to 
very  few  the  privileges  of  their  cities  .  .  .  were  so  far  from  re- 
ceiving any  advantage  from  this  haughtiness  that  they  became  the 
greatest  sufferers  by  it."  —  Translation  of  Edward  Spellmau,  London, 
1758. 

A  recent  writer  asserts  that  the  constitution  of  Athens,  as  described 
by  Aristotle,  rendered  a  great  Athenian  empire  impossible  because  it 
did  not  allow  sufficient  rights  to  .subjects  and  allies. —  P7'eus$isehe  JaJir- 
biioher,  Bd.  LXVIIL,  pp.  119-130. 


TTHAT   THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITH         29 

had  certainly  began  in  Caesar's  time,  Kome  stopped-^ 
and  it  could  only  be  begnn  again  by  Alaric  and  Clovis. 
During  all  the  intervening  time  the  Germans  were  surg- 
ing against  the  Roman  barriers ;  from  the  time  of  Mar- 
cus Aurelius  the  struggle  against  them  was  a  desperate 
one,  and  it  became  finally  a  hopeless  one.  But  these 
four  centuries  which  Rome  had  gained  were  enough. 
During  them  the  provinces  were  thoroughly  Romanized, 
Christianity  spread  itself  throughout  the  empire  and  took 
on  that  compact  and  strong  organization  which  was  so 
vitally  necessary  in  the  confusion  of  the  following  time,' 
and  the  Roman  law  received  its  scientific  development 
and  its  precise  statement. 

The  historical  importance  of  the  mere  fact  that  it  was 
an  organic  unity  which  Rome  established,  and  not  sim- 
ply a  collection  of  fragments  artificially  held  together  by 
military  force,  cannot  be  overstated.  Indeed  it  is  quite 
impossible  to  state  it  so  that  its  full  significance  can  be 
seen  in  the  words.  The  historic  sense,  the  scientific  im- 
agination of  the  reader,  must  come  to  his  aid.  That  this 
was  the  character  of  the  union  Avhich  Rome  established 
has  already  been  illustrated.  It  was  a  union  not  in  ex- 
ternals merely  but  in  every  department  of  thought  and 
action-;  and  it  was  so  thorough,  the  Gaul  became  so  com- 
pletely a  Roman,  that  when  the  Roman  government  dis- 
appeared he  had  no  idea  of  being  anything  else  than  a 
Roman.  The  immediate  result  of  this  was  that  the  Ro- 
manized provincial  began  at  once  the  process  of  Roman- 
izing his  German  conquerors,  and  succeeded  everyAvhere 

'  "  It  may  almost  seem  as  if  the  continuance  of  the  Roman  empire 
in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centm-ies  had  only  the  purpose  of  preparing  the 
way  for  Christianity.  For  as  soon  as  tliis  had  penetrated  into  all  the 
provinces  and  become  strong  enough  to  maintain  its  own  existence 
against  rebellion  and  heresy,  the  empire  became  a  prey  to  the  Barba- 
rians."— Wilhelm  Arnold,  Deutsche  Geschichie,  Frdukisehe  Zeit,  I.,  p 
164. 


30  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

where  lie  had  a  fair  chance ;  aud  it  was  because  of  this 
that,  despite  the  fall  of  Eome,  Roman  institutions  were 
perpetuated.' 

The  more  remote  result  of  it  was  that  strong  influence 
which  this  idea  of  unity,  of  a  single  world-embracing 
empire,  exercised  over  the  minds  of  men  through  all  the 
early  middle  ages.  It  was  this,  together  with  the  influ- 
ence of  that  more  real  union — the  great  united  church 
whose  existence  had  been  made  possible  only  by  this 
Roman  unity — which  kept  Europe  from  falling  into  iso- 
lated fragments  in  the  days  of  feudalism.  More  remote- 
ly still,  that  modern  federation  of  nations  which  we  call 
Christendom,  based  upon  so  large  a  stock  of  common 
ideas  and  traditions,  is  the  outgrowth  of  Roman  unity. 
It  would  very  likely  have  been  created  in  time  by  some- 
thing else  if  not  by  this,  but  as  history  actually  is,  it  was 
done  by  Rome. 

Finally,  this  Roman  unity  made  possible  the  spread 
of  Christianity.  With  the  religious  ideas  which  pre- 
vailed in  the  ancient  world  before  the  advent  of  Rome, 
the  moment  a  Christian  missionary  had  attempted  to 
proclaim  his  religion  outside  the  bounds  of  Judea,  he 
would  have  been  arrested  and  executed  as  attempting 
a  revolution  in  the  state.  It  needed  the  toleration 
throughout  the  empire  of  each  national  religion  along- 

^  Just  as  in  oar  own  case,  it  is  probable  that  the  larger  part  of  those 
who  appear  in  our  census  reports  as  of  foreign  parentage  are  foreign  in 
no  proper  sense.  They  are  an  important  part  of  our  Americanizing 
force.  As  we  know  by  daily  observation,  the  Americanized  foreigner 
is  a  powerful  aid  to  us  in  assimilating  the  recent  foreigner,  and  the 
Scandinavians  of  our  Northwest,  or,  with  most  marvellous  certainty, 
when  we  consider  the  conditions,  the  Negro  of  the  South  could  be 
trusted  to  perpetuate  our  political  ideas  and  institutions,  if  our  repub- 
lic fell,  as  surely  as  the  Gaul  did  his  adopted  institutions.  Witness  the 
Republic  of  Liberia,  notwithstanding  aU  its  limited  success,  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  political  facts  of  history. 


WHAT  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITH         31 

side  every  other,  and  the  melting  of  all  local  national 
governments  whose  life  and  prosperity  had  been  thonght 
to  be  bound  np  in  the  prosperity  of  the  national  religion, 
into  a  great  all-containing  government  which  could  afford 
to  tolerate  all  forms  of  religion  which  had  been  proved 
by  the  logic  of  war  to  be  inferior  to  its  own,  it  needed 
these  results  of  the  conquests  of  Kome  before  Chris- 
tianity could  become  universal.  As  says  Renan  :  "  It 
is  not  easy  to  imagine  how  in  the  face  of  an  Asia  Minor, 
a  Greece,  an  Italy,  split  up  into  a  hundred  small  re- 
publics ;  of  a  Gaul,  a  Spain,  an  Africa,  an  Egypt,  in 
possession  of  their  old  national  institutions,  the  apostles 
could  have  succeeded,  or  even  how  their  project  could 
have  been  started.  The  unity  of  the  empire  was  the 
condition  precedent  of  all  religious  proselytism  on  a 
grand  scale  If  it  was  to  place  itself  above  the  national- 
ities." ' 

In  these  ways  the  conquest  of  the  world  by  Rome, 
and  the  use  which  it  had  known  how  to  make  of  it, 
decisively  influenced  the  whole  course  of  history.  But 
in  addition  to  this,  some  of  the  special  features  of 
Rome's  political  work  have  had  very  important  results. 
That  one  of  these  which  has  had  the  longest  continued 
direct  influence  is  the  Roman  law;  indeed,  it  is  a  fact 
of  great  interest  in  this  connection  that  the  direct  in- 
fluence of  the  Roman  law  is  even  yet  extending. 

The  very  considerable  body  of  law  which  had  grown 
up  in  the  days  of  the  republic,  somewhat  narrow  and 
hai'sh  from  the  circumstances  of  its  tribal  origin,  passed 
in  the  empire  under  conditions  which  favored  both 
important  modifications  of  its  character,  and  very  rapid 
and  Avide  exteDsion.  No  longer  the  law  of  a  little  state, 
or  of  a  single,  fairly  homogeneous  people,  but  of  a  great 
empire'  and  of  numerous  totally  distinct  races,  the  cir- 

'  Report  of  Hibbert  Lecture,  in  London  Times  of  April  7, 1880,  p.  11. 


82  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

cumstances  of  the  case  together  with  the  native  Roman 
genius,  would  have  led,  without  any  foreign  influence, 
to  a  very  decided  softening  of  the  ruder  features  of  the 
law  and  its  development  in  the  direction  of  general 
justice.  But  just  at  this  time  came  Stoicism  with  its 
ethical  teaching,  so  deeply  interesting  to  the  Roman 
mind,  and  with  many  of  its  precepts  shaped  as  if  de- 
liberately intended  for  application  in  some  system  of 
law.  These  are  the  sources  of  that  very  decided  ameli- 
oration, and  ethical  and  scientific  reorganization  of  the 
Roman  law  which,  beginning  soon  after  the  opening  of 
the  second  century,  go  on  so  long  as  it  was  a  living  sys- 
tem. It  must  be  recognized  as  clearly  established  that 
in  this  process  of  humanizing  the  law  Christianity  had 
no  share  which  can  be  traced  until  we  reach  the  time 
of  the  Christian  empire  in  the  fourth  century.  Then, 
although  the  humanizing  work  goes  on  upon  the  lines 
already  laid  down,  some  influence  of  genuine  Christian 
ideas  may  be  traced,  as  well  as  of  theological  and  eccle- 
siastical notions. 

Growing  in  the  two  ways  in  which  all  great  systems  of 
law  grow — by  statute  enactment  and  by  the  establish- 
ment of  precedents  and  the  decision  of  cases,  containing 
both  written  and  unwritten  law— the  body  of  this  law 
had  come  to  be  by  the  fourth  century  enormous  and 
very  diflicult  to  use.  Scattered  in  innumerable  treatises, 
full  of  repetitions  and  superfluous  matter,  not  wdthout 
contradictions,  and  entirely  without  the  help  of  printing 
and  indexes,  which  do  so  much  to  aid  us  in  our  struggle 
with  a  similar  mass  of  law,  the  necessity  of  codification 
forced  itself  upon  the  Roman  mind  as  it  may,  perhaps,  in 
time  upon  the  Anglo-Saxon.  We  have,  first,  attempts  at 
codification  by  private  individuals— the  Gregorian  and 
Hermogenian  codes,  probably  of  the  fourth  century,  and 
containing    only  imperial   constitutions,  that  is,  statute 


WHAT   THE   MIDDLE   AGES    STARTED    WITH  33 

law.  Then  we  liave  the  Theodosian  code,  of  the  Emperor 
Theodosius  II.,  published  in  a.d.  438,  contaming  also 
only  statute  laAv,  though  it  seems  likely  that  the  emperor 
intended  to  include,  before  the  close  of  the  work,  the 
whole  body  of  the  law.  This  code,  formed  just  at  the 
time  of  the  occupation  of  the  Western  Empire  by  the 
Germans,  was  of  very  decided  influence  on  all  the  early 
middle  ages.  Then  came  the  final  codification  in  the 
formation  of  the  Corpus  Juris  Civilis  by  the  Emperor 
Justinian  between  the  years  528  and  534. 
This  comprised : 

I.  The  Code  proper,  containing  the  imperial  constitu- 
tions or  statute  law  then  in  force,  reduced  to  its  lowest 
terms  by  cutting  away  all  imnecessary  matter,  repetitions, 
and  contradictions,  and  covering  chiefly,  though  not  ex- 
clusively, public  and  ecclesiastical  law. 

II.  The  Digest,  or  Pandects,  containing  in  the  same 
reduced  form  the  common  or  case  law,  comprised  mainly 
in  the  resiwns'a  of  the  jurisconsults,  similar  in  character 
to  the  decisions  of  our  judges,  and  covering  chiefly  private 
law,  and  especially  the  law  of  property.' 

III.  The  Institutes,  a  brief  statement  of  the  principles 
of  the  law  intended  as  a  text-book  for  law  students  and 
perhaps  even  for  more  general  use  as  an  introduction  to 
a  knowledge  of  the  law. 

IV.  The  Novelise,  or  Novels,  imperial  constitutions, 
covering  various  subjects,  issued  by  Justinian  himself 
after  the  completion  of  the  Code.  These  are  usually 
spoken  of  as  if  formed  into  a  definite  collection  as  a  part 

'  This  is  what  we  should  call  in  our  system  "  unwritten  law,"  though 
the  Romans  themselves  reckoned  the  responsa  in  the  written  law  (Insti- 
tutes, I. ,  ii. ,  3),  and  they  had  under  the  empire  in  a  certain  limited 
way  the  force  of  statute  law.  Until  toward  the  close  of  republican 
times,  a  classification  which  makes  public  law  synonymous  with  statute, 
and  private  with  common  law,  is  accurate  enough,  but  it  is  not  so  for 
the  days  of  the  empire. 
3 


34  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  the  Cooyus  Juris.  This,  however,  was  not  done  by 
Justmian,  nor  apj)areutly  ever  in  any  authoritative  way, 
and  the  collections  of  the  Novels  which  have  come  down 
to  us  differ  somewhat  from  one  another  in  their  contents. 

The  most  important  effect  of  this  codification  from  our 
point  of  view  was  this  :  By  it  the  enormous  and  scat- 
tered mass  of  the  law,  which  would  in  that  form  un- 
doubtedly have  perished — as  a  historical  fact  the  books 
from  which  it  was  made  did  mostly  perish — was  boiled 
down  into  clear  and  concise  statement  and  into  a  few 
volumes  which  could  easily  be  preserved,  and  that  by 
means  of  the  definite  form  thus  given  it — put  into  a  book 
which  can  be  studied  to-day  just  as  it  existed  in  the 
sixth  century — there  w^as  secui'ed  a  direct  and  immediate 
contact  of  the  principles  of  the  Komau  law  wdth  every 
future  generation. 

The  specific  influence  of  this  law  is  not  difficult  to 
trace.  Soon  after  the  revival  of  its  study  in  the  law- 
schools  of  Italy,  in  the  twelfth  century,  the  political  con- 
ditions of  Europe  offered  an  unusual  opportunity  to  the 
class  of  thoroughly  trained  lawyers  which  was  thus 
formed.  Under  their  influence  this  clear  and  scientific 
body  of  law  was  substituted  in  many  of  the  continental 
states  for  the  native  law,  which,  owing  to  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  the  feudal  age,  was  even  more  confused 
and  imscientitic  than  customary  law  usually  is  ;  or,  if  in 
some  cases  not  actually  substituted  for  it,  became  the 
law  for  cases  not  already  covered  by  the  customary  law. 
This  substitution  was  greatly  aided  by  the  fact  that  in 
these  feudal  states  absolute  monarchies  were  forming 
which  found  a  natural  ally  and  assistant  in  the  spirit  of 
the  Eoman  law.  As  a  result,  this  law  is  still  a  part  of 
the  living  and  actual  law  of  many  modern  nations. 
Owing  to  the  French  and  Spanish  colonial  occiipation,  it 
became  the  law  of  a  part  of  the  territory  now  within  the 


\ 


WHAT   THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITPI         35 

United  States,  and  forms  tlie  actual  law  of  Louisiana  in 
the  Code  of  1824,  wliieli  is  English  in  language  but 
Roman  in  law  and  technical  expressions.  Even  the 
general  Anglo-Saxon  laAV,  which  retained  its  native  char- 
acter and  its  power  of  natural  self-development,  has  been 
profoundly  influenced  in  particular  doctrines — like  that 
of  inheritance,  for  example — by  the  Boman  law.  Still 
more  remarkable  is  the  fact  that,  in  consequence  of  its 
permanence  in  the  Eastern  Empire,  this  law  was  taken 
up  by  the  Mohammedan  states  and  became  the  most  im- 
portant source  of  their  law,  contributing,  it  is  asserted, 
far  more  than  the  Koran  to  the  legal  system  which  now 
rules  throughout  the  Mohammedan  world. 

Aside  from  the  direct  influence  of  the  system  as  a 
whole,  many  of  the  concise  maxims  of  the  Roman  law, 
from  their  almost  proverbial  character,  came  to  have  an 
influence  on  later  ideas  and  facts.  The  best  known 
instance  of  this  is  the  absolutist  maxim,  Quod  principi 
placuit  legis  liahet  vigorem,^  which  exerted  a  considerable 
influence  in  favor  of  the  usurpation  of  legislative  rights 
by.  the  monarchs  at  the  close  of  the  middle  ages,  and,  to- 
gether with  the  marked  centralizing  tendency  of  the  sys- 
tem as  a  whole,  became  one  of  the  most  effective  causes 
of  the  formation  of  absolute  monarchies  in  the  continen- 
tal states.^ 

'  Institutes,  I.,  ii.,  6. 

'  An  example  of  the  influence  of  sucli  maxims,  of  especial  interest 
to  Americans,  is  to  be  foun^  in  the  phrase  "All  men  are  created  equal," 
and  like  phrases,  which  are  of  so  frequent  occurrence  in  the  political 
documents  and  the  writings  of  the  time  of  our  Revolution.  These  are 
maxims  which  passed  into  the  Roman  law  from  Stoicism.  They  came 
into  new  and  very  frequent  use,  after  the  revival  of  the  Roman  law,  in 
the  charters  of  emancipation  which  are  so  numerous  at  the  close  of  the 
middle  ages  as  a  statement  of  the  reason  which  has  led  to  the  granting 
of  the  charter.  Brought  again  into  notice  in  this  way,  their  very  con- 
cise statement  of  what  seemed  to  be  a  great  truth,  and  one  especially 
attractive  to  theorists  in  states  enjoying  little  actual  liberty,  kept  them 


36  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

In  another  great  field  the  influence  of  the  Roman  law 
was  equally  creative — in  the  law  and  theology  of  the 
church.  The  great  system  of  canon  law  which  grew  up 
in  the  government  and  administration  of  the  church 
during  medieval  times  is  based  almost  exclusively  on 
the  Roman  law,  and  in  its  practical  interpretation  in  the 
church  courts  the  principle  was  admitted  that  whatever 
was  ambiguous  or  obscure  in  it  was  to  be  explained  by 
reference  to  the  Roman  law.  In  the  theology  of  the 
AVestern  church  the  influence  of  the  Roman  law  was  less 
direct  but  hardly  less  important.  "In  following  down 
the  stream  of  Latin  theology,  from  Augustine  to  the 
latest  of  the  schoolmen,  we  might  trace  in  the  handling 
of  such  topics  as  sin,  the  atonement,  penance,  indulgences, 
absolution,  the  silent  influence  of  the  conceptions  which 
Roman  jurisprudence  had  made  current."  '  The  same 
strong  influence  may  be  traced  in  the  terminology  and  the 
ideas  of  many  other  sciences,  and  in  such  ethico-political 
notions  as  the  divine  right  of  kings,  the  duty  of  passive 
obedience,  and  the  social  contract  theory  of  government.^ 
Indeed  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  no  other  product 
of  the  human  mind,  not  even  the  Greek  philosophy,  has 
had  so  far-reaching,  nor,  in  its  immediate  original  fui'm, 
so  permanent  an  influence  as  the  Roman  law. 

Another  specific  product  of  the  Roman  political  system 
has  had  as  long  a  life  and  almost  as  wide  an  influence — 
the  imperial  government.     Formed  out  of  a  democratic 

from  being  forgotten,  and  tliey  passed  into  the  writings  of  the  specula- 
tive philosopliers  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  and  from 
this  source  into  the  political  documents  of  the  close  of  the  eighteenth. 
Especially  interesting  is  their  operation  as  actual  law,  in  at  least  one  case, 
in  a  way  wliich  would  have  astonished  the  old  Roman  jurists.  Inserted 
in  the  constitution  of  Massachusetts  they  gave  rise  to  a  decision  of  her 
Supreme  Court,  in  1780,  declaring  slavery  no  longer  legal  in  that  State. 
'  Professor  George  P.  Fisher  :  Discim/ons  in  History  mid  Theology, 
p.  48.  ''See  Maine,  Ancient  Law,  pp.  339  fE. 


WHAT  THE   MIDDLE   AGES   STARTED   WITH         37 

republic  where  the  name  of  king  was  intensely  hated,  by 
the  necessities  which  arose  from  the  government  of  a  vast 
empire,  a  real  despotism  but  of  a  new  type,  under  new 
forms  and  a  new  name,  while  the  citizens  asserted  that 
the  old  republic  continued  as  before,  it  is  itself  one  of  the 
best  examples  of  the  institution-making  power  of  the 
Romans."  Its  strong  centralization  delayed  for  genera- 
tions the  fall  of  Rome ;  its  real  majesty  and  august  cere- 
monial profoundly  impressed  the  German  conquerors  ;  it 
became  one  of  the  most  powerful  causes  which  created 
the  papacy  and  furnished  it  a  model  in  almost  every  de- 
partment of  its  activit}^ ;  the  absolutisms  of  modern  Eu- 
rope were  largely  shaped  by  it ;  and  the  modern  forms  of 
the  word  Csesar,  Kaiser  and  Czar,  in  governments  of  a 
similar  type,  however  different  in  detail,  are  a  proof  of 
the  pov\'er  and  permanence  of  its  influence  in  regions  where 
Rome  never  had  any  direct  control.  We  shall  need  to 
devote  some  space  at  a  later  point  to  the  powerful  pre- 
servative action  of  two  ideas  which  came  to  be  associated 
with  this  government — that  it  was  divinely  intended  to 
embrace  the  whole  world  and  to  last  as  long  as  the  world 
should  last. 

These  cases  may  suffice  for  illustration,  but  they  are 
by  no  means  the  only  specific  instances  of  the  abiding 
character  of  Rome's  political  work  which  could  be  men- 
tioned. Modern  political  vocabularies  testify  to  its  per- 
manence as  clearly  as  our  scientific  vocabularies  do  to 
the  influence  of  the  Ai'abs,  and  many  evidences  of  it  will 
occur  to  us  as  our  work  proceeds. 

We  have,  then,  these  contributions  to  civilization  from 
the  ancient  world.     From  Greece  an  unequalled  literature 

'  As  the  exactly  opposite  process,  turuiug  a  monarchy  into  a  repybljc 
while  retaining  monarchical  forms,  is  of  the  institution-making  power 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons. 


38  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

and  art,  and  the  fc  adations  of  pliilosophy  and  science. 
From  Eome  a  highly  perfected  system  of  law,  a  model  of 
most  effective  absolutism,  and  the  union  of  the  ancient 
world  in  an  organic  whole — the  foundation  of  all  later 
history. 

We  must  remember,  however,  in  closing  this  chapter, 
that  we  have  omitted,  even  from  this  general  sketch  one 
large  side  of  civilization  to  which  we  can  give  no  ade- 
quate treatment  here  or  elsewhere.  It  is  what  may  be 
called  the  economic  and  mechanical  side.  There  passed 
over  to  the  middle  ages  from  the  ancients  large  gains  of 
this  soi-t.  Knowledge  of  the  mechanical  arts,  acquired 
skill  and  inventions  ;  methods  of  agriculture  and  naviga- 
tion; organized  trade  and  commerce  not  all  of  which 
disappeared ;  accumulations  of  capital ;  cleared  and  im- 
proved land  houses,  roads,  and  bridges,  many  of  which 
continued  in  use  across  the  whole  of  medieval  times ;  ad- 
ministrative methods  both  in  general  and  local  govern- 
ment ;  in  a  word,  all  sorts  of  practical  knowledge  and 
training  and  many  mechanical  appliances.  The  economic 
influence  of  the  Roman  empire  affected  in  many  ways  in- 
deed the  larger  movements  of  history.  The  comparative 
free  trade  which  the  empire  established,  the  constitution 
of  the  Roman  villa  or  farm,  the  beginning  of  the  process 
which  transformed  the  slave  into  the  serf,  the  forced  de- 
pendence of  the  small  landholder  upon  the  large  one,  are 
important  instances.  These  things  constitute  together, 
in  some  respects,  the  most  primary  and  fundamental 
department  of  civilization,  and  must  not  be  forgotten, 
though,  Avith  the  exception  of  a  few  instances  which  we 
shall  notice,  they  demand,  like  the  greater  part  of  politi- 
cal history,  special  and  specific  treatment. 


CHAPTEE  III.' 

THE   ADDITION  OF   CHEISTIANITY 

Into  this  Roman  empire  there  came  the  Christian  re- 
ligion as  the  first  of  the  great  influences  transforming 
the  ancient  into  the  modem  world,  and  adding  its  con- 
tribution of  great  ideas  to  those  of  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans. It  appeared  just  after  the  empire  had  received 
its  organization  as  a  monarcjiy ;  it  grew  very  slowly  by 
coimt  of  numbers  during  the  next  succeeding  genera- 
tions, while  the  empii-e  was  still  strong  and  perfecting  its 
organization ;  as  the  Roman  power  decayed  it  began  to 
spread  with  greater  rapidity,  till,  by  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century,  on  the  eve  of  the  German  conquest,  it 
was  the  prevailing  religion — not  perhaps  in  actual  num- 
bers, but  certainly  in  influence  and  energy  and  in  the 
actual  control  of  society. 

During  its  early  career,  at  least,  the  progress  of  this 
new  faith  was  rendered  slow  by  certain  facts  which  were 
characteristic  of  it.  Its  adherents  were  few.  They 
were  from  the  lowest  ranks  of  society,  workmen  and 
slaves — more  largely  also  women  than  men — so  that  it 
attracted  very  little  attention  from  persons  of  position 
and  influence.     Its  missionaries  also  were  Jews,  a  tur- 

'  On  the  facts  of  this  chapter,  see  especially  Fisher,  The  Beginnings 
of  Ghristianity ,  aiul  De  Pressense,  The  Early  Years  of  OhHstmniti/. 
The  original  of  this  work  has  recently  been  revised  in  important  par- 
ticulars by  the  author.  Compare,  also,  the  Hibbert  Lectures  of  Renan, 
Home  and  Christianity. 


40  MEDIEVAL   CtVILIZATION 

bulent  race,  not  to  be  assimilated,  and  as  mucli  despised 
and  hated  by  the  pagan  Roman  as  by  the  medieval 
Christian.  Wherever  "it  attracted  any  notice,  therefore, 
it  seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  some  rebel  faction  of 
the  Jews,  gone  mad  upon  some  obscure  point  of  the  na- 
tional superstition — an  outcast  sect  of  an  outcast  race. 

Again,  it  is  a  permanent  characteristic  of  Christianity 
that  many,  at  least,  of  its  external  features  in  any  par- 
ticular age — the  points  of  conduct  upon  which  it  insists 
with  the  greatest  emphasis — are  determined,  we  may  al- 
most say  are  selected,  by  the  character  of  the  great  evils 
[  which,  for  the  time  being,  it  has  especially  to  fight.  In 
the  first  age  the  greatest  enemy  to  be  overcome  was 
paganism.  Christianity  had  other  truths  of  importance 
k)  teach,  and  other  evils  to  overcome,  but  the  one  deadly 
foe  whose  complete  possession  of  society  must  be  first 
of  all  destroyed  was  the  worship  of  many  gods.  This 
complete  contrast  between  the  new  religion  and  the 
dominant  heathenism  led  necessarily  to  a  strictness  in 
the  teaching  and  practice  of  the  monotheistic  doctrine 
which  the  pagan  society  found  it  hard  to  understand, 
and  which  placed  Christianity  at  a  disadvantage  in  com- 
petition with  the  numerous  other  oriental  religions  which 
were  at  this  time  spreading  over  the  Roman  empire — 
Christianity  would  seem  to  the  observant  Roman  noth- 
ing more  than  one  of  this  general  class. 

These  other  religions  said  to  the  Roman :  Continue  to 
worship  your  own  gods,  worship  as  many  gods  as  3'ou 
please,  only  take  this  one  in  addition  ;  they  are  good,  but 
we  bring  you  something  better  on  some  particular  point, 
some  more  perfect  statement  of  the  common  truth,  accept 
this  also.  Christianity  said  :  No.  All  these  teachings  are 
false,  all  idol  worship  is  a  deadly  sin.  You  must  aban- 
don all  these  beliefs  and  accept  this  alone  as  the  only 
true  and  exclusive  faith.     And  this  teaching  the  Chris- 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  41 

tiaus  carried  out  in  their  daily  li\diig  even,  in  frequent 
eases  concerning  such  minutias  as  food  to  be  eaten  and 
occupations  to  be  pursued.  This  was  a  demand  entirely 
new  and  incomprehensible  to  the  heathen  mind,  trained 
in  the  idea  of  an  unlimited  pantheon.  It  is  not  strange 
that  the  determination  of  the  Christian  to  die  rather  than 
to  perform  the  simplest  rite  of  pagan  worship  seemed  to 
the  Roman  the  most  obstinate  and  insane  stupidity.  In 
other  words,  the  native  attitude  of  the  ancient  mind  to- 
ward questions  of  religion  must  be  completely  revolu- 
tionized before  the  new  faith  could  be  victorious — a  task 
of  immense  difficulty,  and  not  completely  performed  in 
that  age,  as  we  shall  see  wTien  we  come  to  consider  the 
transformation  of  Christian  ideas  which  resulted  from 
the  struggle. 

And  yet,  not^vdthstanding  these  obstacles,  and  -  the  ap- 
parently slight  chance  of  success  which  it  had,  Christi- 
anity made  extremely  rapid  progress  in  relative  increase. 
Starting  from  an  insignificant  province,  from  a  despised 
race,  proclaimed  by  a  mere  handful  of  ignorant  workmen, 
demanding  self-control  and  renunciation  before  unheard 
of,  certain  to  arouse  in  time  powerful  enemies  in  the  highly 
cultivated  and  critical  society  which  it  attacked,  the  odds 
against  it  were  tremendous.  But  within  a  single  gener- 
ation it  had  been  successfully  taught  in  all  the  central  prov- 
inces of  the  Roman  empire  and  far  beyond  its  boundaries. 
In  the  second  century  its  progress  among  all  classes  Avas 
very  rapid.  In  less  than  three  hundred  years  from  the 
crucifixion  it  had  become  the  recognized  religion  of  the 
imperial  court,  and  had  been  placed  on  a  footing  of  legal 
equality  with  paganism  throughout  the  empire,  and  be- 
fore that  century  closed  it  Avas  the  only  legal  religion. 
Its  progress  seems  miraculous,  and  Freeman  has  not 
overstated  the  case  in  the  following  sentence  :  "  The  mir- 
acle of  miracles,  greater  than  dried-up  seas  and  cloven 


42  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

rocks,  greater  than  the  dead  rising  again  to  life,  was 
when  the  Augustus  on  his  throne,  Pontiff  of  the  gods  of 
Eome,  himself  a  god  to  the  subjects  of  Rome,  bent  him- 
self to  become  the  worshipper  of  a  crucified  provincial  of 
his  empire.*'''  It  must  have  possessed  certain  great  com- 
pensating advantages  to  give  it  so  speedy  a  victory  in 
the  face  of  such  difficulties. 

By  far  tlie  most  important  of  these  was  the  definite- 
ness  and  confidence  of  its  teaching  on  the  questions  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  the  expiation  of  sin. 
Whatever  cause  may  be  assigned  for  it,  the  fact  is  clear 
that  the  society  of  the  empire  was  intensely  interested  in 
these  two  questions.  At  the  end  of  the  republic  the  faith  of 
the  Romans  in  their  national  mythology  may  have  grown 
weak,  but  their  interest  in  the  deeper  problems  of  relig- 
ion had  only  quickened.  In  the  early  days  of  the  empire 
the  first-mentioned  Avas  the  more  absorbing  question — 
Does  the  soul  live  after  death  ?  Can  we  know  anything  of 
the  future  life  ?  and  various  forms  of  religion,  chiefly 
from  the  East,  like  the  worship  of  Isis,  gained  numerous 
adherents  for  a  time,  because  they  seemed  to  offer  some 
more  complete  revelation  upon  this  point.  As  the  dark 
days  came  on,  and  evils  crowded  upon  the  empire,  the 
other  question  demanded  more  attention,  and  the  prac- 
tice of  various  expiatory  rites — of  oriental  origin  again 
and  horribly  bloody  and  revolting  in  character — became 
frequent  in  the  West.  Of  these  the  most  prominent  was 
Mithraism,  which  at  one  time  seemed  to  be  a  serious 
rival  to  Christianity."^  But  for  the  earnest  man  who  is 
seeking  after  help  in  some  spiritual  need,  which  is  clearly 
realized,  the  practice  of  rites  and  ceremonies  is  never 
permanently  satisfactory,  and  Christianity  possessed  an 

1  Freeman  :  Periods  of  European  History,  p.  67. 
-  See  a  brief  description  of  these  rites  in  Hodgkin,  Italy  and  Her  In- 
vaders, Vol.  I.,  p.  502,  note  (second  edition). 


THE   ADDITION"   OF   CHRISTIANITY  43 

enormous  advantage  over  its  rivals  in  the  character  of  its 
teaching  upon  these  points,  and  in  the  confidence  pf  its 
faith.  The  Christian  teacher  did  not  say:  I  believe. 
He  said :  I  know.  On  the  question  of  immortality  he 
appealed  to  an  actual  ease  of  resurrection,  supported  by 
the  testimony  of  many  witn^ses — the  founder  of  his 
faith,  not  raised  from  the  dead  by  some  miracle-worker 
calling  him  forth  by  incantations,  but  rising,  himself,  by 
the  power  of  an  inner  and  higher  life  which  was  beyond 
the  reach  of  death,  the  first-fruits  of  them  that  slept. 
On  the  question  of  the  forgiveness  of  sin  he  appealed  to 
the  cases  of  innumerable  individuals — even  of  communi- 
ties and  tribes — transformed  by  the  power  of  his  gospel  ■ 
from  lives  of  sin  and  degradation  to  orderly  and  righte- 
ous living.' 

The  one  thing  which  was  the  essential  peculiarity  of  this 
teaching,  as  compared  with  other  religious,  was,  no  doubt, 
also  the  thing  which  was  the  source  of  the  Christian's 
extreme  confidence  and  of  his  permanent  faith.  This 
was  the  belief  of  the  Christian  that  an  intimate  personal 
tie  had  been  established  between  himself  and  God  by  the 
Saviour.  The  tender  fatherhood  x)i  God,  ^villing  to  for- 
give the  sinful  man,  and  to  create  in  him  anew  the  forces 
of  a  pure  life,  was,  to  the  disciple,  the  central  truth  of  the 
gospel.  The  love  of  God  replaced  the  fear  of  Go'd  as  a 
controlling  principle,  and  became  a  far  greater  force  than 
that  had  ever  been.  The  Christian  apostle  did  not  de- 
mand belief  in  any  system  of  intellectual  truth.  The 
primitive  Christianity  had  apparently  no  required  theol- 
ogy."  He  did  not  demand  that  certain  rites  and  ceremonies 

'  Almost  all  the  early  Christian  literature  can  now  be  read  in  English. 

'^"It  is  the  glory  of  the  earliest  church  that  it  had  for  its  peoi)le  no 
demanded  creed  of  abstract  doctrine  whatsoever." — Phillips  Brooks,  in 
the  Princeton  liedew,  March,  1879,  p.  306.  Compare  Fisher,  Beijla- 
liitirjs  of  Christianity,  p.  5GG. 


44  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

should  be  performed.  The  rites  of  the  primitive  Christi- 
anity were  of  the  simplest  sort  and  not  regarded  as  causes. 
What  ■  he  demanded  was  personal  love  for  a  personal 
Saviour.  It  was  the  proclamation — in  the  one  way  to 
maTvB  it  a  practical  force  in  daily  civilization,  not  a  mere 
theory  in  the  text-books  of  scholars — of  the  fundamental 
truth  which  all  philosophy  had  sought,  the  unity  of  God 
and  man,  the  harmony  of  the  finite  and  .the  infinite. 
And  it  did  become  a  great  force,  and  remaiiied  so  in  pro- 
portion as  it  was  not  obscured  by  later  misconceptions. 
There  can  be  no  question  but  that  this  personal  faith  in 
a  personal  Saviour,  this  belief  in  the  love  of  God  and  the 
reaUty  of  heaven  brought  to  thousands  of  the  poor  and 
ignorant,  and  in  as  high  a  degree,  the  comfort  and  confi- 
dence and  fearlessness  of  fate,  the  calmness  and  conso- 
lations which  philosophy  brought  to  the  highly  cultured 
few. 

This  peculiar  personal  character  of  its  faith  was  un- 
doubtedly, as  was  just  remarked,  the  source  of  that 
overbearing  confidence  of  belief  in  its  answer  to  the  two 
great  religious  demands  of  the  age  which  gave  Chris- 
tianity a  decided  advantage  over  every  other  religion. 
The  completeness  with  which  it  satisfied  the  deepest  re- 
ligious needs  of  the  time,  the  fulness  of  consolation 
which  it  brought  to  the  wretched  and  sorrowing,  these 
were  the  most  effective  causes  of  its  rapid  spread  and 
of  the  permanence  of  its  hold  upon  its  followers.\ 

While  these  are  by  far  the  most  important,  some  few 
of  the  subsidiary  causes  of  its  rapid  advance  deserve 
mention.  The  study  of  the  Greek  philosophy,  and  esjje- 
cially  that  of  Plato,  led  some  to  Christianity  after  it  be- 
gan to  attract  the  attention  of  the  educated  classes.  But 
here,  again,  it  was  the  greater  definiteness  and  confidence 
of  its  answer  to  the  questions  which  the  Greek  philos- 
ophy raised  which   formed  the  decisive  reason   for  its 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  45 

acceptance.  The  persecutions  had  their  usual  effect. 
They  attracted  the  attention  of  many  to  the  new  fajth 
who  would  otherwise  have  passed  it  by  Ainnoticed,  and 
they  forced  men  to  ask  if  there  must  not  be  something 
more  in  it  than  appeared  on  the  sm'face  to  account  for  the 
calmness  and  joy  of  the  Christian  in  the  face  of  death. 
The  earnestness  and  enthusiasm  of  all  early  converts 
to  a  new  form  of  faith  were  especially  characteristic  of 
the  Christians  and  seemed  especially  contagious.  The 
effect  of  ChrisH^nity  on  the  lives  of  those  who  embraced 
it  Avas  constantly  appealed  to  by  the  early  Christians  as 
evidence  of  the  character  of  their  religion,  and  it  must 
have  been  an  extremely  forcible  argument.  It  would  be 
very  interesting,  if  space  allowed  us  to  do  so,  to  exam- 
ine in  detail  the  ethical  influence  of  early  Christianity  so 
far  as  the  evidence  permits.  There  can  be  no  question 
but  that,  so  long  as  it  remained  a  pure  and  simple  re- 
ligion, its  influence  worked  a  moral  revolution  in  those 
who  came  under  it.  It  is  only  necessary  to  recall  the 
ethical  exhortations  in  the  New  Testament,  or  the  lists  of 
sins,  the  doers  of  which  cannot  enter  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  and  to  remember  such  facts  as  the  regulations 
against  taking  part  in,  or  even  attending,  the  gladia- 
torial games — the  most  intensely  exciting  amusement  of 
the  ancient  world,  or  the  proscribing  of  certain  occupa- 
tions— ^metal-workers,  actors,  sometimes  even  soldiers  or 
ofiicers  of  the  state — to  realize  how  complete  a  control 
over  conduct  it  attempted,  and  how  squarely  it  attacked 
the  characteristic  sins  of  the  age,  and  although  Chris- 
tianity did  not  succeed  in  destroying  sin  in  the  world, 
nor  even  within  its  own  membership,  the  cases  seem  to 
have  been  numerous  in  which  the  process  went  far 
enough  to  furnish  a  strong  argument  in  making  other 
converts. 

Like  all  great  movements  of  the  kind,  the  spread  of 


46  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Cliristiauity  is  not  to  be  explained  by  tlie  action  of  a 
single  canse,  and  ■  others,  perhaps  as  important  as  these, 
contributed  to  the  rapidity  of  its  advance.  However  the 
fact  may  be  accounted  for,  the  number  of  its  adherents 
soon  became  great  enough  to  attract  to  itself  the  atten- 
tion of  the  state.  Whatever  may  be  true  of  the  first 
century,  whether  or  not  the  Roman  government  was  con- 
scious in  that  age  of  any  distinction  between  Christians 
and  Jews,  or  whether  it  had  any  clear  idea  of  what  it 
was  doing  in  the  persecutions  under  such  tyrants  as 
Nero  and  Domitian,  it  is  certain  that,  early  in  the  second 
century,  it  came  to  have  an  understanding  of  Christian- 
ity and  its  attitude  toward  the  state  religion — an  atti- 
tude which  the  conscientious  Roman  ruler  could  hardly 
pass  unnoticed. 

The  action  of  the  Roman  government  in  respect  to 
many  of  the  new  religions  which  were  making  their  way 
toward  the  West  was  inconsistent.  It  was  an  alterna- 
tion of  careless  indifference,  or  even  apparent  favor,  with 
spasmodic  attempts  at  repression  which  really  accom- 
plished nothing.  But  there  was  in  Christianity  an  ele- 
ment of  hostility  toward  the  state  which  none  of  the 
other  new  religions  contained.  While  they  might  lead 
to  a  neglect  of  the  state  religion  by  the  greater  interest 
excited  in  the  new  faith,  Christianity  insisted  upon  the 
entire  abandonment  of  the  national,  worship,  not  as  an 
inferior  religion  but  as  an  actual  and  particularly  hein- 
ous sin.  According  to  all  the  ideas  of  the  Romans  such 
a  demand  could  be  nothing  but  rebellion  and  treason. 
The  safety  of  the  state  depended  u^dou  the  fidelitj^  of  the 
citizens  to  the  national  worship.  If  the  gods  were  duly 
honored  and  the  sacrifices  carefully  performed,  the  state 
flourished;  if  they  were  neglected  or  carelessly  wor- 
shipped, misfortunes  followed.  Undoubtedly  this  belief, 
on  its  practical,  if  not  on  its  theoretical  side,  had  greatly 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  47 

weakened  during  the  prosperous  times  of  Rome's  his- 
tory. But  it  had  not  been  abandoned,  and  when  public 
misfortunes  became  frequent  and  the  power  of  the  state 
seemed  declining,  it  was  natural  that  the  earnest  reformer 
should  believe  the  neglect  of  the  gods  to  be  the  source 
of  the  evil  and  seek  a  restoration  of  prosperity  by  means 
of  a  restoration  of  the  national  religion ;  or,  if  not  him- 
self fully  confident  of  this,  it  was  natural  that  he  should 
believe  that  the  "  reflex  influence  "  of  an  earnest  national 
worship  would  check  the  causes  of  decline. 

It  follows  from  this  that  the  time  of  systematic  and 
deliberate  persecution  com,es  when  the  real  statesmen  of 
the  empire  have  become  conscious  of  the  deadly  nature 
of  her  disease.  It  seems  evident  that  we  must  say  that, 
during  the  first  century,  the  government  had  no  distinct 
consciousness  of  the  existence  of  Christianity.  The 
second  century  is  a  time  of  local  and  temporary  enforce- 
ment of  the  laws  against  the  Christians.  With  the  third 
century  we  reach  an  age  of  fearfully  rapid  decline  and  of 
most  earnest  attempts,  at  intervals,  by  clear-sighted  em- 
perors, to  turn  back  the  tide,  and  this  is  the  age  of  planned 
and  tlioroughgoing  imperial  persecution^  There  was 
really  no  alternative  for  men  like  Decius  and  Valerian 
and  Diocletian.  Christianity  was  a  vast,  organized  de- 
fiance of  the  law.  It  vehepiently  denounced  the  national 
religion  as  a  deadly  sin.  It  earnestly  denied  any  para- 
mount duty  of  loyalty  to  the  state,  and  apj)ealed  to  a 
higher  loyalty  to  another  fatherland.  No  restoration  of 
earlier  Roman  conditions,  such  as  the  reformers  hoped 
for,  could  be  possible  unless  it  was  overcome.' 

^  The  whole  subject  of  the  teaching  of  early  Christianity  upon  the 
relation  of  the  individual  to  the  stafe,  and  its  effect  in  the  Roman 
empire,  is  a  very  interesting  one.  It  has  been  repeatedly  asserted  that 
the  extreme  vividness  with  which  it  conceived  of  the  higher  interest  of 
the  life  to  come  in  comparison  with  this  life,  and  of  citizenship  in  the 


48  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

But  it  was  too  late.  Christianity  was  now  too  strong. 
These  systematic  persecutions  of  the  third  century  failed, 
and  the  last,  Diocletian's,  ended  in  a  virtual  confession  of 
defeat.  Not  that  the  Christians  were  now  in  the  major- 
ity. They  were  far  from  it,  and  did  not  become  so  until 
long  afterward.  No  exact  figures  are  possible,  but  it 
seems  certain  that  ,at  the  beginning  of  the  f oui'th  century 
they'' were  not  more  than  one-tenth  of  the  total  popula- 
tion in  the  eastern  half  of  the  empire,  nor  more  than 
one-fifteenth  in  the  western.  But  they  had  an  importance 
altogether  disproportionate  to  their  numbers.  A  gloomy 
and  hopeless  fear  of  the  future  was  settling  over  the 
pagan  world.  It  seemed  to  be  coming  to  realize  that  its 
best  days  were  j)ast,  and  that  its  highest  creations  were 
falling  into  decay,  and  to  be  losing  its  earlier  self- 
confident  spirit  and  energy.  But  the  Christians  had 
been  inspired  with  a  new  hope  for  the  future  which  was 
wholly  independent  of  the  fate  of  the  empire.  The  con- 
vulsions and  revolutions  of  the  present  could  only  be 
prefatory  to  a  better  era,  and  the  Christian  community 
was  full  of  enthusiasm  and  energy  and  the  vigor  of  a  new 
life,  in  marked  contrast  to  the  pagan.  Again,  the  Chris- 
tian was  a  distinctly  city  population  ;  that  is,  their  nmn- 
bers,  however  small  they  may  have  been  as  compared 
with  the  whole,  were  massed  in  the  especial  points  of 

kingdom  of  Christ  as  wider  and  more  obligatory  than  any  earthly  citizen- 
ship, was  one  of  the  serious  causes  of  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman 
state.  The  proof  of  this  assertion  seems  to  me  entirely  inadequate. 
The  most  that  can  be  maintained  with  certainty  is  that  the  attitude  of 
the  Christians  was  a  very  serious  obstacle  to  the  efforts  at  restoration  and 
revival  in  the  middle  empire,  so  serious  an  obstacle,  indeed,  that  it 
goes  far,  when  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Roman  states- 
man, to  justify  the  attempts  of  the  reforming  emperors  to  put  down 
Christianity  by  force  even,  since  there  was  no  possible  means  of  bring- 
ing its  adherents  back  to  their  duty  to  the  state.  That  the  teaching  of 
Christianity  was  a  positive  cause  of  dissolution  I  do  not  think  can  be 
shown. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  49 

influence,  occupied  the  strategic  positions  throughout 
the  empire.  Still  further,  their  organization,  though 
less  close  than  it  was  soon  to  be,  gave  them  means  of 
speedy  communication  and  common  action.  Undoubt- 
edly their  power  was  greater  than  their  relative  numbers, 
and  probably  greater  than  they  themselves  knew.  But 
it  was  not  long  before  the  man  came  who  suspected  the 
fact,  and,  in  tui'ning  it  to  his  personal  advantage,  secured 
the  triumph  of  Christianity  over  paganism. 

That  Constantine  declared  himself  a  supporter  of 
Christianity  from  a  conviction  of  its  truth  or  irom  relig- 
ious motives  cannot  be  maintained.  Indeed  there  is  no 
evidence  to  show  that  he  ever  became  in  heart  a  real 
Christian,  His  motive  is  not  hard  to  find.  As  he  started 
out  from  his  small  frontier  province  with  his  little  army 
to  conquer  the  empire,  the  odds  against  him  were  tre- 
mendous. But  there  have  not  been  many  men  in  history 
of  clearer  political  insight  than  he.  It  is  not  rash  to 
suppose  that  he  reasoned  with  himself  that  if  he  pro- 
claimed himself  the  protector  of  this  hitherto  illegal  and 
persecuted  sect  they  would  rally  to  his  support  with  all 
their  enthusiasm,  and  that  he  would  secure  the  aid  of  the 
most  vigorous  faction  in  the  state.  The  great  weakness 
of  heathenism,  in  contrast  with  Christianity,  must  have 
been  apparent  to  so  keen  an  observer.  Without  union 
among  its  scattered  forces,  without  leadership,  believing 
in  itself  with  no  devoted  confidence,  without  faith  in  the 
future,  with  no  mission  in  the  present  to  awaken  energy 
and  life,  it  was  not  the  party  which  an  ambitious  and 
clear-headed  young  man  would  choose  to  lead  to  victory. 
The  motive  which  induced  him  to  support  Christianity 
was  piu-ely  political,  and  the  result  certainly  proved  his 
judgment  collect. 

But  in  another  sense  the  act  of   Constantine  has  a 
further  significance,  and  is  a  part  of  a  wider  movement. 
4 


50  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  transformation  of  the  Roman  empire  from  the 
ancient  to  the  medieval  was  made  in  the  half-century 
which  followed  the  accession  of  Diocletian.  The  changes 
introduced  by  liim  in  forms  and  constitution,  as  modified 
and  carried  further  by  Constantine,  marked  an  entire 
revolution,  a  complete  change  of  front.  The  empire  cut 
itself  loose  from  its  past.  It  no  longer  pretended  to  be 
what  it  had  been  at  first.  It  frankly  recognized  the 
situation  as  it  was,  and  no  longer  attempted  to  restore  the 
old.  It  had  faced  the  future.  This  change  logically 
carried  with  it.  the  recognition  of  Christianity.  It  is  by 
no  means  certain  that  Diocletian  was  not  vaguely  con- 
scious of  this.  Constantine  realized  it  clearly  enough 
for  action,  thoiigh  he  might  not  have  been  able  to  put, it 
in  this  form  of  statement. 

For  Christianity,  as  for  the  empire,  this  was  an  age  of 
transition,  an  age  of  transformation  in  character  and  in 
constitution,  tke  results  of  which  will  occupy  us  elsewhere. 

It  remains  for  us  to  point  out,  so  far  as  it  is  possible, 
the  contributions  of  Christianity  to  our  civilization,  as 
one  of  the  four  great  sources  from  which  that  civiliza- 
tion has  been  derived.  What  are  the  new  elements 
which  were  brought  into  human  life  and  progress  by  the 
Christian  religion? 

In  making  an  attempt  to  do  this  it  is  necessary  at  the 
outset  to  notice  briefly,  by  way  of  caution,  two  or  three 
elementary  facts  which  vdll  be  stated  more  fully  in  a 
later  chapter.  In  the  first  place,  we  are  to  examine  the 
effect  of  Christianity  as  an  historical  force,  not  as  a  di- 
vine religion.  AVhether  its  claim  to  an  especial  divine 
character  be  true  or  false  makes  no  difference  in  this  in- 
quiry. Here  we  are  to  seek  the  influences  which  cer- 
tainly follow  from  it  as  historical  facts,  whichever  hy- 
pothesis may  be  adopted. 


THE    ADDITION    OF    CHRISTIANITY  51 

In  the  second  place,  we  are  concerned  here  neither 
with  the  results  which  were  accomplished  by  the  Chris- 
tian theology,  nor  with  those  which  followed  from  the 
church  as  a  government  or  an  ecclesiastical  institution.  In 
both  these  directions  J;he  Christian  religion  furnished 
the  foundation  for  greal;  historical  constructions  which 
had  extremely  important  results.  But  in  neither  case  is 
Christianity  as  a  religion  .the  really  creative  power,  and 
the  results  which  followed  from  the  dogmatic  system,  or 
from  the  chui'ch,  can  be  credited  to  the  religion  only  in 
so  far  as  it  furnished  an  occasion  ior  the  action  of  the 
forces  which  really  called  them  into  existence.  It  is 
with  the  religious  that  we  are  concerned  at  this  point, 
and  not  with  the  theological  or  the  ecclesiastical. 

Again,  it  should  be  noticed  that  influences  of  a  relig- 
ious nature,  like  those  of  pure  ideas  of  any  sort,  are  diffi- 
cult to  trace  with  absolute  exactness.  Their  action  is 
much  less  likely  to  be  made  a  matter  of  record  than  is 
that  of  other  causes  which  may  have  contributed  to  the 
common  result.  There  can  be  no  questioii,  for  example, 
but  that  the  teachings  of  the  gospel  were  decisive  in- 
fluences, in  thousands  of  individual  cases  in  the  United 
States,  in  creating  a  public  opinion  against  slavery  before 
the  Civil  War ;  but  it  would  be  far  more  difficult  to  write 
the  history  of  their  action  than  to  wiite  the  history  of 
the  political  influences  which  combined  with  them.  AVe 
are  often  confined  to  inference  in  such  cases  in  the  ab- 
sence  of  positive  proof,  but  the  inference  may  be  so  ob- 
vious as  to  be  equivalent  to  proof. 

Taking  up,  then,  the  work  of  Christianity  for  civihza- 
tion,  we  must  first  consider  its  influence  upon  the  world's 
religious  ideas  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  and  it  will 
be  in  this  direction  that  its  most  important  influence  ydW 
be  found.  Keligion  forms  one  great  side  of  civilization, 
and  whatever  raises  the  world's  religious  conceptions  to 


52  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

a  higher  level  must  be,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  among  the 
great  civilizing  forces  of  history.' 

As  a  contribution  to  the  religious  side  of  civilization 
the  general  work  of  Christianity  is  not  difficult  to  state. 
The  work  of  this  new  religion,  which  stands  first  in  logi- 
cal order,  was  to  free  the  monotheistic  idea  which  the 
Jews  had  attained  from  the  narrow  tribal  conditions 
which  had  made  the  general  acceptance  of  it  impossible, 
and  to  make  it  the  ruling  idea  of  God  in  the  Christian 
world,  from  which  it  passed  later  to  -the  Mohammedan. 
God  was  to  be  henceforth  one  God. 

It  introduced  with  this  idea  of  the  one  only  true  God  a 
wholly  different  conception  of  his  character  and  of  his 
relation  to  man  from  any  that  had  preyailed  before,  em- 
phasizing the  fatherhood  of  God  and  his  love  for  man. 
This  idea  of  the  fatherhood  of  God,  typified  and  pro- 
claimed in  an  extremely  effective  form  in  the  sonship  of 
Christ,  man's  elder  brother,  brought  man  near  to  God  and 
gave  him  a  new  point  of  view  for  all  the  future.  Love 
became  the  great  religious  force  of  the  new  age.  In  the 
practical  working  of  Christianity  this  idea  did  not  remain 
a  mere  idea.  It  was  transformed  into  a  positive  force  in 
history  through  the  keen  conception  which  the  individual 
Christian  had  of  the  immediate  personal  relationship  be- 
tween himself  and  God,  by  virtue  of  which  the  power  of 
the  Almighty  would  come  to  his  aid  in  his  endeavor  to 
make  himself  like  God.  In  other  words,  Christianity  not 
merely  taught  that  this  relationship  was  an  ideal  possi- 
bility, but  it  made  men  believe  it  as  a  fact,  so  that  they 
actually  lived  with  a  sense  of  the  di"\ane  power  in  them. 

'  In  considering  in  the  first  part  of  this  chapter  those  ideas  of  the 
early  Christianity  which  aided  in  its  rapid  extension  thronghout  the 
ancient  world,  some  of  its  teachings  and  resnlts  which  were  new  have 
already  been  indicated.  They  will  be  repeated  in  this  connection  for 
completeness  sake.  v. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  63 

This  was  in  reality,  to  repeat  what  was  said  in.  another 
connection,  the  proclamation  of  the  unity  of  God  and 
man,  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite,  not  as  a  philosophical 
idea .  merely,  or  speculative  theory,  but  as  something 
actually  to  be  realized  by  common  men.  A  sense  of  rec- 
onciliation and  harmony  with  God  might  become,  Chris- 
tianity said,  a  conscious  fact  of  daily  life  for  every  indi- 
vidual. . 

Christianity  also  taught,  as  a  necessary  result  of  the 
Christian  conception  of  the  relation  between  God  and  man, 
that  religion  has  a  direct  practical  mission  as  an  ethical 
teacher  and  help.'  This  was  a  new  and  most  important 
step  in  advance.  The  ancient  religions  had  made  no 
ethical  demand  of  the  worshipper.  The  character  at- 
tributed to  the  gods  could  hot  be  helpful  to  any  man. 
The  pagan  priest  had  never  looked  upon  himself  as  a 
teacher  of  morals,  or  conceived  of  any  reformatory  mis- 
sion for  his  religion.  The  Greek  or  Eoman  in  need  of 
ethical  aid  and  comfort  sought  the  philosopher  and  not 
the  priest,  This  whole  condition  of  things  Christianity 
revolutionized.  The  pure  ideal  of  character  which  •  it 
held  aloft  in  its  conception  of  God,  its  clear  assertion  of 
the  necessity  and  the  possibility  of  such  a  character  for 
every  man  which  it  made  in  the  gospel  naiTative,  created 
an  intimate  bond  between  religion  and  ethics  unknown 
before.'     The  religious  life  which  Christianity  aimed  to 

'  The  Old  Testament  in  this,  as  in  some  other  of  the  points  men- 
tioned, foreshadows  tlic  clearer  teaching  of  the  New.  St.  Augustine 
perceived  this  difference  between  Christianity  and  the  Roman  religion, 
and  in  the  City  of  God  challenged  the  pagans  to  produce  instances  of 
moral  teaching  in  their  religion.  See  especially  Bk.  II.,  chap.  G. 
The  fact  that  the  Greek  and  Roman  religions,  which  are  the  pagan 
religions  of  the  ancient  world  in  the  direct  line  of  our  civilization,  re- 
mained to  the  end  strongly  political  or  aisthetic  in  character,  probably 
prevented  them  from  reaching  the  idea  of  a  connection  between  the 
national  religion  and  private   morala,  and  left  the  recognition  of  this 


54  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

create  in  the  individual  must  of  necessity  express  itself 
in  right  conduct.  This  was  its  true  fruit,  its  external 
test,  and  to  perfect  this  the  energy  of  the  new  religion 
was  especially  directed. 

It  is  no  doubt  true  that  these  religious  conceptions  did 
not  immediately  and  completely  gain  the  victory  over 
the  older  and  cruder.  The  struggle  between  the  old  and 
the  new  was  often  obstinate  and  long  continued,  and  the 
higher  conception  long  obscured  by  persistence  of  the 
lower.  But  in  so  far  as  these  ideas  are  now  the  posses- 
sion of  men,  it  must  be  reckoned  to  the  credit  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  whoever,  even  if  he  deny  to  Christianity  a 
peculiarly  divine  character  or  an}'^  finality  as  a  religion, 
may  yet  hope  that  a  still  more  perfect  understanding  and 
realization  of  religious  truth  will  be  gained  in  the  future, 
must  recognize  in  Christianity  the  foundations  on  which 
it  Anil  be  built. 

So  much,  at  least,  may  be  said  with  confidence  upon 
the  contribution  which  Christianity  made  to  the  strictly 
religious  side  of  our  civilization.  If  what  has  just  been 
asserted  of  the  connection  which  the  Christian  teaching 
established  between  religion  and  ethics  be  true,  it  follows 
that  a  further  influence  of  this  religion  is  to  be  traced  in 
the  direction  of  practical  ethics. 

Here  is  to  be  noticed,  first  of  all,  the  lofty  ideal  of  a 


truth  to  the  poets  aud  philosophers,  who  certainly  came  near  to  it.  See, 
for  example,  Cicero,  De  Natura  Deorum,  I.  i.,  3  and  4.  The  case 
of  Socrates  is  very  much  to  tlie  point.  He  saw  as  clearly,  probably, 
as  ever  any  pagan,  the  connection  between  man's  character  and  God, 
and,  in  what  is  a  very  remarkable  way,  also,  with  that  conscious  sub- 
mission of  the  will  -to  God  which  is  a  necessary  condition  of  spiritual 
knowledge.  But  Socrates  was  put  to  death  because  his  teaching  was 
thought  to  be  dangerous  to  the  state.  In  some  of  the  other  pagan 
religions,  like  the  Egyptian,  this  connection  was  more  clearh'  seen,  and 
though  not  contributing  directly  to  our  civilization,  such  cases  are,  in 
themselves,  instructive. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  55 

pure  and  sinless  life  which  Christianity  held  before  all 
men  in  its  story  of  the  life  of  Christ,  as  a  model  which 
they  were  to  follow,  as  the  divinely  given  pattern  accord- 
ing to  which  they  were  to  shape  their  own  lives.  For 
Christianity  did  not  conceive  of  Christ's  life  as  the  life 
of  a  God  impossible  for  man,  bnt  as  a  divinely  aided 
human  life,  as  the  life  of  a  divine  being  who  had  been 
willing  to  become  really  a  man  and  to  put  himself  into 
the  same  conditions  and  limitations  in  the  midst  of  which 
man  must  live  in  order  that  he  might  be  taught  to  realize 
the  possibilities  of  his  own  life.  Or,  as  it  has  been  finely 
said,  this  life  of  Christ  "revealed  to  man  both  the  human 
side  of  God  and  the  divine  side  of  man."  The  Christian 
ideal  was  not  like  the  Stoic,  a  mere  ideal  which  had 
never  been  attained.  In  this  respect  Christianity  made 
a  most  decided  advance  upon  Stoicism  in  the  fact  that  it 
pointed  to  an  actual  life  which  had  realized  its  ideal,  as 
well  as  in  its  further  teaching  that  man  had  not  to  de- 
pend solely  upon  the  power  of  his  own  will  in  his  en- 
deavor to  attain  it. 

In  the  second  place,  Christianity  taught,  most  espe- 
cially,  that  the  duty  of  conformity  tothis  i(leM,1  n.nri  of"" 
fidelity  to  the  higher  moral  law  was  the  supreme  la\Y^of 
cpnduct,  whatever  the  power  might  be  which  demanded 
anything  to  the  contrary.  Christianity  clearly  asserted 
that  the  supreme  moral  law  was  distinct  from  the  law  of 
the  state  and  of  a  higher  validity.  It  was  not  exactly  a 
new  idea  that  there  existed  a  moral  law  separate  from 
the  law  of  the  state  to  which  man  ought  to  conform. 
Stoicism  at  least  perceived  the  fact.  But  that  this  law 
demanded  a  rightful  obedience  of  the  individual  when 
the  positive  requirement  of  the  state  conflicted  with  it, 
was  an  advance,  though  certainly  the  pagan  ethics  could 
not  have  been  far  from  this  truth.  But  Christianity  did 
not  stop  with  this.     It  furnished  a  direct  practical  ex- 


56  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION  ^ 

liibition  of  the  princij)le  in  a  constant  succession  of  the 
most  public  and  most  dramatic  examples  in  every  peiiod 
of  persecution.  Within  its  own  membership,  also,  it 
proceeded  to  the  positive  enforcement  of  this  supreme 
moral  law  in  the  system  of  church  penances,  very  early 
developed  at  least  in  some  directions.  The  church  began 
to  hold  its  membership  directly  responsible  for  acts  of 
which  the  state  took  no  account.  Whatever  may  be  said 
of  the  system  of  penances  of  any  later  date,  there  can  be 
no  question  but  that  it  was  in  primitive  times  a  most 
effective  .moral  teacher. 

Jn_th£  -third-.  place^__Qhristianity  taught  that  the  con^ 
"H^jlS— v^l'^ti^^T^^T^'p-  established  betweeu^he  individual 
and  God  in  this  life  would  determine  his  destmy  in  the~ 
Tile  to  come,  and  that,  consequently,  a  right  moral  char- 
acter,  as  the  necessary  product  of  that  relationship,  as 
the  indispensable  fruit  and  test  of  the  harmony  of  the 
human  will  with  the  divine  will,  was  of  infinite  impor- 
tance. Wrong  living  and  immoral  life  would  destroy  that 
harmony  between  God  and  man  upon  which  an  eternity 
of  happiness  depended.  I  doubt  if  the  early  Christianity 
anywhere  formulated  this  teaching  in  exactly  this  shape, 
but  if  the  statement  was  more  concrete  in  form  the 
ethical  meaning  and  influence  were  precisely  as  stated.' 

It  followed  necessarily  from  this  belief  that  many 
actions  of  which  the  ancient  law  had  taken  no  account, 

'  But  see  St.  Augustine,  City  of  Ood  XXI. ,  25  (Dod's  translation, 
Vol.  II.,  p.  459) :  "  And  therefore  neither  ought  such  persons  as  lead  an 
abandoned  and  damnable  life  to  be  confident  of  salvation,  though  they 
persevere  to  the  end  in  the  communion  of  the  church  Catholic,  and 
comfort  themselves  with  the  words,  '  He  that  endureth  to  the  eud 
shall  be  saved.'  By  the  iniquity  of  their  life  they  abandon  that  very 
righteousness  of  life  which  Christ  is  to  them,  whether  it  be  .  .  . 
by  doing  any  one  of  those  things  of  which  [the  apostle]  says,  '  They 
who  do  such  things  shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God.  '  "  (Gal.  v.  21). 
Compare,  also,  the  opening  sentences  of  XIX.,  4. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  57 

and  which  the  ancient  society  had  regarded  as  unim- 
portant, or  even  as  indifferent,  morally,  might  have  a 
tremendous  significance  as  elements  of  permanent  char- 
acter, determining  the  attitude  of  the  individual  toward 
God.  It  is,  without  doubt,  chiefly  through  the  influence 
of  this  teaching,  through  the  introduction  of  the  idea 
of  sin  as  a  controlling  idea  in  ethics,  that  the  work  of 
Christianity  has  been  done  in  raising  the  general  moral 
standard  and  in  clarifying  specific  ethical  judgments,  as 
in  the  change,  to  specify  one  of  the  most  striking  cases, 
which  has  been  brought  about  in  the  character  of  the 
judgment  passed  upon  sexual  wrongdoing. 

Another  conclusion  from  this  teaching  in  regard  to 
character  was  that  the  determining  factor  in  all  ethical 
judgment  of  the  individual  must  be  the  inner  character 
and  not  the  external  act ;  that  the  external  act  is  of  im- 
portance only  as  a  sign  of  what  the  inner  character  is. 
This  also  was  not  exactly  a  new  idea,  but  Christianity 
put  it  in  a  far  more  vivid  and  striking  form  than  ever 
before  when  it  recorded,  in  the  book  which  was  read  and 
re-read  as  the  special  religious  guide  and  manual  of  all 
believers,  the  impressive  words  of  its  founder  in  which 
he  proclaimed,  in  regard  to  some  of  the  most  easily  be- 
setting sins  of  every  age,  that  the  passion  cherished  in 
the  heart  carries  with  it  th'^  gu^jt  <^^  ^^^'^  fiirt  i^*^^!/ 
_  In  the  fourth  place,  among  the  contributions  of  Chris- 
tianity to  ethics — and  in  some  respects  this  was  its  most 
decisive  ethical  influence — Christianity  taught  a  doctrine 
of Jiope  to  the  morally  depraved  and  debased  in  charac- 
toi'^  It  taught  TEat  if  the  inner  character  was  not  right, 
it  might  be  transformed  by  the  grace  of  God,  if  the  in- 
dividual would  accept  for  himself  the  culminating  truth 
of  its  religious  teaching,  forgiveness  of  sin  through  faith 
in  the  work  of  Christ,  that  it  might  be  transformed  all  at 
once,  by  a  single  supreme  choice,  a  conscious  submission 


58  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOIT 

of  the  will  to  God,  so  that  the  man  would  come  to  love 
what  he  had  hated  and  hate  what  he  had  loved.  And  it 
also  taught  that  the  power  which  had  so  transformed  the 
life  would  continue  a  constant  divine  aid  in  the  moral 
endeavors  and  struggles  of  the  new  life.  The  essential 
thing  to  be  regarded  here,  entirely  independent  of  any 
religious  significance  which  it  may  have,  is  the  historical 
fact  that  Christianity  did  create  in  the  minds  of  men  a 
firm  and  confiding  belief  in  such  a  transformation.' 

It  begot  in  the  debased  and  despairing  outcast  a  firm 
assurance  that  he  had  escaped  wholly  from  his  past  life ; 
that  its  associations  and  temptations  would  no  longer 
have  any  power  over  him,  but  that  he  was  as  free  to  be- 
gin a  new  life  as  if  he  had  been  born  again.  In  this 
belief  which  it  created,  Christianity  was  introducing  an 
entirely  new  factor  into  history.  The  greatest  problem 
of  practical  ethics  has  always  been,  not  to  get  men  to 
recognize  the  truth  intellectually,  but  to  get  them  to  be 
true  in  conduct  to  their  ethical  convictions.  It  is  true, 
no  doubt,  that  Stoicism  taught  a  very  high  system  of 
moral  truth  ;  it  even  attempted,  as  a  sort  of  missionary 
philosophy,  to  persuade  men  to  live  according  to  the 
laws  of  right ;  but  it  recognized  its  powerlessness  to 
make  Stoics  of  the  masses.  In  the  work  which  it  did  in 
this  direction  is  to  be  found  one  of  the  greatest  contri- 

'  Origen  quotes  Celsus  as  saying  :  "  And  yet,  indeei,  it  is  manifest  to 
every  one  tliat  no  one  by  chastisement,  much  less  by  merciful  treat- 
ment, could  effect  a  complete  change  in  those  who  are  sinners  both  by 
nature  and  custom,  for  to  change  nature  is  an  exceedingly  difficult 
thing."  After  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  philosophy  had  some- 
times worked  such  a  change  of  character,  Origen  says :  "  But  when  we 
consider  that  those  discourses,  which  Celsus  terms  '  vulgar,'  are  filled 
with  power,  as  if  they  were  spells,  and  see  that  the}'  at  once  convert 
multitudes  from  a  life  of  licentiousness  to  one  of  extreme  regularity, 
and  from  a  life  of  wickedness  to  a  better,  .  .  .  why  should  we  not 
justly  admire  the  power  which  they  contain." — Translation  of  Origen, 
in  Ante-Niccne  Library,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  145-147. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  59 

biitions  of  Cliristianity  to  the  ethical  regeneration  of  the 
world.  In  the  directly  personal  character  of  its  central 
truth,  Christ  the  Saviour  of  each  individual  man,  in  the 
firm  confidence  which  it  created  that  the  power  of  God 
had  transformed  the  life  and  would  constantly  aid  in  the 
struggle  to  keep  it  right,  and  in  the  creative  power  of 
love,  rising  in  the  heart  of  man  to  meet  the  love  of  God, 
Christianity  set  a  new  ethical  force  at  work  in  the  world. 
And  it  is  through  the  emphasizing  of  these  ideas  that 
the  transforming  power  of  Christianity  has  been  exer- 
cised. In  proportion  as  Christianity  has  kept  these 
truths  at  the  front  in  its  teaching,  and  realized  them  in 
its  prevailing  life,  it  has  been  a  great  force  in  leading  men 
to  a  higher  ethical  level.  As  it  has  put  something  else  in 
their  place  as  the  main  thing  to  be  emphasized,  whether 
external  forms  or  doctrinal  beliefs,  it  has  failed  of  its 
mission  and  limited  its  own  power,  and  this  has  been 
undoubtedly  the  case  through  long  jDeriods  of  time.  It 
has  been  said  that  the  church  never  sullied  the  purity  of 
its  moral  teaching ;  but  it  must  be  confessed  that  there 
are  ages  of  Christian  history  when  the  theoretical  teach- 
ing seems  to  be  almost  the  only  thing  that  did  remain 
])ure,  and  when  this  had  but  little  real  influence  upon 
the  general  life  of  the  time.  Genuine  Christianity,  in 
such  an  age,  was  certainly  almost  lost  to  sight,  living  on 
in  those  unpretending  lives  which  attracted  no  attention 
at  the  time,  but  of  which  we  find  the  traces  even  in  the 
darkest  days,  and  one  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  our 
own  time  is  the  recovery  of  influence  and  emphasis  in 
the  active  Christianity  of  to-day  which  these  truths  have 
made. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  overstate  the  importance  of  the 
new  power  thus  brouglit  into  the  moral  life  of  the  world. 
Science  forbids  us  to  believe  it  possible  to  add  any  new 
force  to  the  sum  total  of  physical  forces  already  at  work  in 


60  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  universe.  But  it  would  seem  as  if  we  certainly  came 
upon  the  fact  here  that  with  Christianity  there  was  added 
to  the  sum  total  of  energies  in  action  in  human  history 
a  new  increment  of  ethical  force.  Something  which  had 
not  existed  in  the  world  before  actually  made  it  easier 
for  men  to  escape  from  the  bondage  of  evil  habits,  and  to 
realize  their  ideals  of  a  moral  life.  It  may  be  difficult  to 
follow  through  their  details  the  results  which  have  been 
thus  secured,  because  they  are  realized  in  character  and 
in  individuals  in  spheres  of  life  where  record  is  unusual, 
and  by  forces  that  are  silent  and  iinobserved  in  action. 
But  publicans  and  sinners  transformed  into  saints  of 
Christian  history  are  by  no  means  confined  to  the  gospel 
days.' 

There  remain  to  be  considered.,  certain  results  which 
Christianity  has  accomplished,  either  b}'  itself  or  in  com- 

/ 

'  Very  little  Las  been  said  in  the  above  passage  of  the  influence  of 
Christianity  upon  specific  ethical  doctrines,  aud  for  these  reasons  :  Upon 
certain  points,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  for  example,  it  does  not  seem 
to  me  that  the  things  ordinarily  said  are  true.  Upon  some  others  I  am 
very  much  in  doubt  what  ought  to  be  said,  as  upon  the  duty  of  self- 
sacrifice  for  others,  an  idea  of  conduct  which  appears  to  be  undergoing 
transformation  at  the  present  time.  But  in  the  main,  for  this  reason  : 
It  was  no  part  of  the  peculiar  mission  of  Christianity  lo  make  known 
specific  ethical  principles.  It  needs  no  revelation  to  make  them  known 
to  men.  The  laws  of  conduct  are  as  much  a  part  of  the  constituent 
laws  of  man's  being  as  are  the  laws  of  logic,  and  the  growing  experience 
of  man  teaches  him  what  these  laws  are  in  the  one  case  as  it  does  in  the 
other,  and  enlarges  and  clarifies  and  ennobles  his  ethical  ideas  precisely  as 
it  does  his  mathematical.  The  peculiar  mission  of  Christianity  is  in  the 
religious  sphere,  and  its  relation  to  ethics  is,  as  indicated  above,  in  the 
vital  necessity  which  it  places  upon  the  individual,  of  living  better,  as 
the  life  which  is  in  the  vine  makes  it,  of  necessity,  bear  fruit. 

I  quote  the  following  passage  from  a  distinguished  living  divine  as 
an  example  of  the  careless  writing  which  is  often  done  on  the  specific 
ethical  influence  of  Christianity :  "It  is  not  without  significance  that 
the  first  hospitals,  the  first  schools,  the  first  free  states  have  been  Chris- 
tian. Monasteries  were  the  first  hospitals  ;  monks  were  the  first 
teachers." 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  61 

bination  with  influences  from  other  sources,  which  do  not 
naturally  fall  under  either  its  religious  or  its  directly 
ethical  work. 

The  next  chapter  udll  treat  more  fully,  under  the  ele- 
ments of  civilization  which  the  Germans  introduced,  of 
the  origin  of  the  modern  idea  of  the  worth  of  the  individ^ 
ual  man  as  compared  with  the  classic  idea  of  the  greater 
importance  of  the  state.  One  soui'ce  out  of  which  the" 
modern  idea  has  gro"«Ti  is,  without  doubt,  the  supreme 
value  placed  upon  the  individual  man  in  the  Christian 
teaching  of  the  vastl}"  greater  importance  of  the  life  to 
come  than  of  this  life  or  any  of  its  interests,  of  the  infinite 
destinies  before  each  man,  all  depending  upon  his  indi- 
vidual choice  and  character.  The  attitude  of  the  early 
church  in  this  matter,  toward  the  state  under  which  it 
existed,  the  Eoman  empire,  was  probably  more  extreme 
than  its  attitude  toward  any  later  government,  and  yet 
there  have  been  some  ages  in  which  the  contrast  between 
the  higher  interests  of  the  individual  and  those  of  the 
state  has  been  dra-vvii  almost  as  sharply,  and  the  teaching 
of  Christianity  on  the  point  has  certainly  been  clear  and 
unmistaljable.  That  this  teaching  led  to  the  adoption  of 
positive  institutions  in  any  free  government  cannot  be 
affirmed.  Its  influence  is  to  be  found  rather  in  the  line 
of  the  ideas  by  which  we  defend  our  right  to  individual 
liberty. 

Christianity  taught  also  the  equality  of  all  men  in  the 
sight  of  God.  It  taught  this  not  merely  as  an  abstract 
idea.  Stoicism  had  done  tliat.  But  in  the  early  Chris- 
tianity, at  least,  it  put  the  idea  into  practice  so  far  as  it 
was  possible  to  do  so.  The  master  Avas  lield  to  treat  his 
slave  as  a  brother.  They  both  stood  on  the  same  foot- 
ing within  the  church,  and  its  offices  and  dignities  were 
open  to  both  alike.  If  the  early  story  that,  in  the  third 
century,  a  slave  became  bishop  of  Home,  is  doubtful,  the 


62  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATIOTT 

fact  that  such  a  story  came  to  be  believed  at  all  is  signifi- 
cant ;  and  ceiiainlj  in  feudal  days,  when  the  church  fell 
largely  under  the  feudal  influence,  instances  are  not 
imcommon  of  men  from  the  lowest  classes  rising  to  posi- 
tions in  the  church  of  the  highest  rank.  The  teaching  of 
the  church  always  kept  before  men  the  idea  of  the  equal- 
ity in  moral  rights  and  in  final  destiny  of  all  men.  That 
it  was  the  chiefly  effective  force  in  establishing  practical 
equality,  so  far  as  it  has  been  established,  can  hardly  be 
asserted.' 

-  Again,  Christianity  demanded  the  complete  separation 
of  church  and  state,  and  asserted  that  each  must  be  rec- 
ognized as  ha"v^ng  its  own  distinct  and  independent  mis- 

^  Under  tins  point  something  may  be  said  upon  the  discussions,  which 
have  been  frequent  of  late,  on  the  specific  influence  of  Christianity  in 
the  abolition  of  slavery  and  in  the  advancement  of  woman  to  a  position 
of  equality  with  man.  It  is  clear  to  the  careful  student  of  history  that 
both  these  reforms  have  been  brought  about  In*  a  combination  of  eco- 
nomic, social,  and  moral  caiises,  of  which  the  Christian  teaching  forms 
only  a  single  element.  The  attempt  on  the  part  of  some  to  claim  for 
Christianity  more  of  a  share  in  these  results  than  can  be  fairly  claimed 
grows  apparently  out  of  a  misapprehension  of  the  nature  and  field  of 
Christian  influence.  Ethical  exhortation,  and  denunciation  of  vice,-and 
the  example  of  noble  lives  are  most  powerful  forces  in  the  moral  ad- 
vancement of  the  race,  and  it  is  absurd  to  deny  them,  as  some  seem 
desirous  to  do,  their  proper  share  in  the  result.  But  where,  as  often  • 
happens,  an  institution  which  involves  a  moral  evil  is  bound  up  with 
the  economic  and  social  conditions  of  a  given  stage  of  civilization,  it 
requires  more  than  a  moral  conviction,  more  even  than  a  general  moral 
conviction  that  it  is  wrong,  to  secure  its  overthrow,  however  important 
such  a  moral  conviction  may  be  as  one  of  the  necessary  causes  of  its 
destruction.  In  such  a  case,  also,  the  process  of  creating  a  general 
moral  condemnation  of  the  evil  is  always  a  long  and  slow  one,  and  not 
infrequently  the  professed  teachers  of  morals  are  to  be  found  upon  the 
wrong  side.  So  long  as  economic  and  social  conditions,  real  or  sup- 
posed, favor  the  continuance  of  an  institution  or  a  practice,  plausible 
moral  arguments  in  its  support  are  not  difficult  to  find  ;  when  influences 
from  various  sources  begin  to  combine  against  the  evil,  then  the  true 
principles  of  ethics  come  to  their  aid  and  hasten  the  common  result. 


THE   ADDITION   OF   CHRISTIANITY  63 

sion  to  perform.  In  tlie  ancient  world  the  two  had  been 
intimately  associated,  and  the  religious  organization  had 
been  looked  upon  as  very  largely  a  branch  of  the  political. 
This  view  of  the  relationship  contained  a  great  danger 
for  the  groAving  church — the  danger  of  being  absorbed  in 
tlie  state,  of  losing  all  independence  of  development,  and 
of  being  divei-ted  from  its  own  proper  work  to  serve  poUt- 
ical  ends.  It  was  undoubtedly  this  danger  which  forced 
the  early  church  to  develop  so  clearly  the  doctrine  of 
independence  of  state  control  Avhich  is  involved  in  Chris- 
tianity, and  to  insist  upon  it  so  strongly  against  Koman 
emperors  and  German  kings. 

That  the  modern  complete  separation  of  chui'ch  and 
state,  as  we  have  it  in  the  United  States,  has  grown  out 
of  a  protest  against  the  position  of  the  church  itself  on 
this  question,  is  not  a  proof  that  the  separation  of  church 
and  state  is  not  an  outgrowth  of  Christian  teaching,  but 
furnishes  us  only  a  fui-ther  instance  of  the  fact  that  the 
later  church,  as  a  whole,  did  not  remain  true  to  the  fun- 
damental principles  of  Christianity,  and  that  these  had 
to  be  recovered  by  a  reformation  of  some  kind.  When 
the  church  had  secured  its  independence  of  the  state, 
and  perfected  its  organization,  and  grown  strong,  it  went 
a  step  further  and  asserted  the  right  of  the  church  to 
control  the  state.  That  this  principle  in  practical  opera- 
tion is  as  dangerous  as  the  other,  which  absorbs  the 
church  in  the  state,  it  needs  no  argument  to  prove  ;  but  it 
also  needs  none  to  prove  that  both  are  equally  foreign  to 
the  teachings  of  Christianity. 

The  gain  to  civilization  from  the  complete  sepai-ation 
of  church  and  state  is  easily  seen.  It  is  an  essential 
condition  of  free  thought  and  free  discussion  that  the 
totally  distinct  spheres  of  the  two  institutions  should 
be  recognized,  and  without  it  intellectual  progress,  except 
in  the  realm  of   theory  and  barren  speculation,  would 


64  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATIOIT 

be,  if  not  impossible,  beset  with  almost  insurmountable 
difficulties. 

Finally,  Christianity  had  awakened  in  a  part  of  the 
dhcient  society  a  new  hopefulness  and  energy  and  pro- 
ductive power  even  before  the  Germans  had  brought  in 
the  reinforcement  of  their  vigorous  life.  How  much 
this  might  have  amounted  to  had  the  Germans  not  come, 
and  had  the  conditions  of  the  follo^vdug  age  been  favor- 
able, cannot  be  said ;  but  it  is  a  result  deserving  of  notice 
both  as  showing  the  tendency  of  Christianity  and  as 
indicating  undoubtedly  one  of  the  sources  of  a  reviving 
civilization  soon  to  come. 

The  example  of  this  influence  of  Christianity,  to  which 
attention  has  been  most  frequently  called,  is  the  contrast 
between  the  contemporary  pagan  and  Christian  litera- 
tures from  the  third  century  on.  The  pagan  is  more 
refined  and  polished,  but  it  is  empty  and  barren,  spirit- 
less imitation  of  classic  models.  The  Christian  literature 
of  the  same  generations  is  cruder  and  less  elegant,  but  it 
is  full  of  spirit  and  vigor  and  energetic  life.  There  is 
something  to  be  said  and  some*  purpose  in  saying  it. 

In  closing  this  account  one  cannot  avoid  recurring  to 
what  was  implied  at  the  outset.  It  is  impossible  not  to 
feel  the  incompleteness  of  any  statement  of  the  influence 
of  Christianity  upon  civilization.  Some  of  the  more 
obvious  and  apparent  results  can  be  mentioned,  but  its 
full  work  cannot  be  traced.  This  is  mainly  for  the 
reason  stated.  Its  operation  lies  in  the  realm  of  the 
silent  and  unobserved  forces  which  act  upon  the  individ- 
ual character  and  the  springs  of  action,  but  which  can, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  leave  no  record  of  themselves 
for  later  time. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

THE  GERMAN  CONQUEST  AND  THE  FALL  OF  ROME  ' 

With  the  introduction  of  one  more,  the  four  chief 
sources  of  our  civilization  "uere  brought  together.  The 
Germans  had  waited  long.  That  restless  movement  of 
theii-  tribes  in  search  of  new  lands  which  overwhelmed 
the  empire  in  the  fifth  centurv  had  begun  five  hundred 
years  earlier.  The  invasion  of  the  Cimbri  and  Teutones 
at  the  end  of  the  second  century  B.C.,  had  held  Rome  in 
terror  for  a  decade,  and  Julius  Cfesar,  fifty  years  later,  had 
found  his  opportunity  to  begin  the  conquest  of  Gaul  in 
expelling  the  already  successful  army  of  the  German 
Ariovistus  from  its  occupation  of  Gallic  territory.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  the  Romans  the  German  occupation 
of  Western  Europe  would  have  followed  at  once,  more 
slowly  perhaps  than  when  it  actually  occurred,  but  with- 
out a  check.  But  now  they  had  been  forced  to  wait  for 
centuries,  learning  always  more  and  more  of  the  wonders 
and  riches  of  the  desired  lands,  growing  constantly  more 
and  more  eager  to  possess  them,  striving,  every  genera- 
tion of  them,  to  find  some  weak  spot  through  which  they 

'  Of  the  conquest  of  the  Roman  empire  by  the  Germans  the  best 
account  in  English  is  Hodgkin's  Italy  and  ITer  Invaders.  His  J)i/na.Hfi/ 
of  Theodosius  and  Thcodom  the  Ostrogoth  are  briefer  and  more  popular 
accounts  of  portions  of  the  period.  Bury's  Later  Roman  Empire  sXionlH. 
also  be  used.  The  account  of  the  conquest  in  Emerton's  Introduction 
to  tlie  Middle  Ages,  though  brief,  is  especially  clear  and  easy  to  be  held 
in  mind. 


66  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

might  force  their  way,  but  always  held  back.     Atilast 
their  time  came. 

The  Germans  were  by  natm-e  restless  and  fond  of  ad- 
venture. There  was  over-population  at  home,  and  the 
lack  of  land  to  support  their  people,  with  their  primi- 
tive methods  of  agriculture,  was  seriously  felt.  It  was 
this  necessity  to  find  more  land  for  their  growing  num- 
bers Avliich  was,  beyond  question,  the  impelling  force  in 
their  earlier  attacks  and  later  conquest  of  the  Roman 
empire.  But  the  first  successful  invasion,  the  first  per- 
manent occupation  of  Roman  territory  was  not  brought 
about  by  either  of  these  causes. 

Upon  the  great  kingdom  of  the  Goths,  which  had  been 
formed  by  the  genius  of  Ermanaric  just  after  the  middle 
of  the  fourth  century,  and  which  occupied  a  considerable 
part  of  European  Russia,  stretching  from  the  Don  to  the 
Danube,  fell  aii  invasion  of  the  Huns.  They  were  a 
Mongolian  or  Tartar  race,  frightful  to  the  sight,  skilled 
in  their  peculiar  tactics,  swift  to  attack,  vanishing  before 
the  return  blow,  and  they  were  too  strong  for  the  more 
civilized  Goths.  Of  the  two  tribal  divisions  of  the  Gothic 
race  the  greater  part  of  the  Ostrogoths,  or  East  Goths,, 
submitted  to  the  Huns,  were  incorporated  in  their  em- 
pire, and  remained  subject  to  it  and  tributary  to  its 
army  until  that  empire  fell  to  pieces  a  century  later." 
The  Visigoths,  however,  fell  back  before  the  advance  of 
the  Huns,  and  appeared  on  the  Danube  frontier  a^ 
suppliants  for  the  Roman  protection.  It  was  granted 
them  and  they  were  transported  to  the  southern  bank. 
It  was  a  dangerous  experiment,  but  all  went  well  at  first, 
and  all  might  have  continued  to  go  well  even  with  so 
great  a  risk.  But  the  smallest  risk  is  too  great  for  a  state 
rotten  with  political  corruption.  The  opportunity  for 
plunder  was  too  great  to  be  resisted  by  the  officers  in 
charge,  and  they  forced  the  Goths  to  buy  the  food  which 


THE  GEEMAN  CONQUEST  67 

should  have  been  given  them,  and  sold  them  back  their 
hostages,  and  sold  them  back  their  arms.  The  treason 
which  is  latent  in  every  form  of  the  spoils  doctrine  could 
hanUy  go  further  than  this.  The  patience  of  a  German 
race  with  arms  in  its  hands  under  brutal  mistreatment 
Avas  soon  exhausted,  and  they  burst  into  a  flame  of  re- 
volt, s\Vept  everything  before  them,  and  at  last,  far  with- 
in the  bounds  of  the  empire,  a  hostile  German  tribe  de- 
stroyed a  Roman  army  and  slew  the  Emperor  Valens. 

This  crossing  of  the  Danube  frontier,  in  376  a.d.,  and^ 
this  battle  of  Hadrianople,  in  378,  are  the  events  which 
mark  the  beginning  of  the  permanent  occupation  of  the 
Roman  empire  by  the  German  tribes. 

It  was  the  beginning  of  the  age  of  conquest,  but  the 
empire  was  already  largely  German.  Julius  Csesar  had 
begun  the  practice  of  enlisting  German  auxiliaries  in  the 
Roman  armies,  and,  although  the  practice  had  grown  very 
slowly  at  first,  in  the  later  years  it  had  assumed  enor- 
mous ^Proportions,  until  Avhole  armies  were  German,  and 
entire  German  tribes,  under  the  command  of  their  na- 
tive chiefs,  and  preserving  all  their  tribal  organization, 
entered  the  Roman  service.  Such  tribes  had  been  set- 
tled in  lands  along  the  frontier  on  condition  of  keeping 
put  all  others.  If  possible  even  larger  numbers  had  been 
introduced  as  slaves.  From  the  days  of  Marius  on,  in 
larger  and  smaller  bodies,  the  influx  had  been  constant 
until  they  were  present  everywhere — in  the  towns  as 
house  slaves,  in  the  country  as  colonl  bound  to  the  soil. 
In  the  conquest  these  Germans  already  within  the  empire 
were  no  doubt  a  more  important  element  than  the  rec- 
ords indicate.  The  indifference  of  the  inhabitants  to 
the  German  occupation,  which  is  everywhere  manifest, 
was  very  likely  due  in  some  part  to  the  large  number 
of  Germans  already  around  them,  and,  in  some  cases,  as 
in  the  last  invasion  of  Alaric,  we  can  get  a  glimpse  of 


68  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

the  positive  aid  they  rendered  ;  in  a  larger  number,  un- 
questionably, of  the  cases  which  were  recorded,  we  find 
them  the  bravest  and  most  effective  of  Bome's  defenders. 

The  great  Emperor  Theodosius  was  able  to  restore  or- 
der in  the  East,  and  to  hold  the  Visigoths  in  check  as 
nominal  Roman  subjects — indeed  as  faithful  allies  of 
his,  but  they  retained  as  their  own  the  lands  which  they 
had  occupied  in  the  Danube  valley.  On  his  death,  in 
395,  they  began  to  move  again,  incited  perhaps  by  some 
change  in  the  policy  of  the  government  toward  them 
which  they  regarded  as  a  slight,  impelled,  more  likely, 
by  the  race  restlessness  or  by  the  ambition  of  the  young 
Alaric,  now  just  coming  to  the  leadership.  They  rav- 
aged Thrace,  threatened  Constantinople,  turned  south  in- 
to Greece,  past  Athens,  which  was  spared,  and  into  the 
Peloponnesus.  Here  Alaric  was  checked  by  the  skill  of 
Stilicho,  the  Vandal,  guardian  of  the  Western  empe- 
I'or,  and,  though  not  actually  subdued,  accepted  bribes 
and  titles  and  returned  to  the  Danube  valley.  In  a  few 
years  he  was  on  the  march  again,  this  time  toward  the 
west.  Once  more  Stilicho  forced  him  back  (402),  but 
this  time  he  took  a  position  near  the  head  of  the  Adri- 
atic, from  which  it  would  be  easy  to  turn  in  either  direc- 
tion as  circumstances  might  invite. 

In  the  meantime  the^storm  was  descending  from  every 
quarter.  The  fatal  weakness  of  the  empire  in  this  final 
period,  the  want  of  an  army,  had  made  it  necessary  to 
call  in  a  part  of  the  frontier  garrisons  to  meet  the  attack 
of  Alaric.  The  frontiers  could  no  longer  be  defended. 
One  great  horde  of  men,  whose  exact  tribal  relation- 
ships are  not  known,  under  command  of  Radagaisus, 
poured  down  from  "Western  Germany  into  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Florence  (405).  Here  what  seems  to  have  been 
the  main  body  was  outgeneralled  and  annihilated  by 
Stilicho,  and  inflicted  no  injury  upon  the  empire,  be- 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  69 

yond  the  increased  exliaustion  which  followed  every  such 
strain  in  its  weakened  condition. 

But  far  Avorse  thmgs  than  this  were  happening  else- 
where in  this  opening  decade  of  the  fifth  century — the 
most  aAvful  moment  of  the  barbarian  deluge.  Britain, 
Gaul,  and  Spain,  abandoned  by  their  rightful  defenders, 
harried  by  invading  tribes  and  by  revolted  troops  and 
the  ephemeral  emperors  of  their  creation,  fell  out  of  the 
empire  never  to  be  recovered  again  except  in  name.  An 
army  of  related  tribes-^Burgundians,  Yandals,  Suevi, 
Alani — broke  through  the  Rhine  frontier  at  the  end  of 
the  year  406,  and  after  a  few  years  of  aimless  plundering 
found  permanent  homes  within  the  empire— the  Bur- 
gundians  in  Eastern  Gaul,  in  lands  which  have  retained 
their  name,  and  as  nominal  subjects  of  the  emperor, 
whose  sanction  they  received,  but  in  reality  as  an  inde- 
pendent state.  The  other  tribes  passed  through  the 
Pyrenees  into  Spain,  which  they  carved  into  kingdoms 
for  themselves,  which  lasted  with  varying  degrees  of  per- 
manence. In  the  following  year,  407,  the  last  Roman 
troops  abandoned  Britain  to  its  fate,  and  following  a 
new  Constantine,  whom  they  had  proclaimed  emperor, 
crossed  over  into"  Gaul  to  add  to  the  confusion  there.    , 

In  Italy  th(^  tragedy  of  the  empire  drew  rapidly  to  a 
climax.  Stilicho,  justly  or  unjustly,  excited  the  suspi- 
cion of  the  Emperor  Honorius  and  was  put  to  death  in 
408.  Alaric's  opportunity  had  come.  Without  a  mo- 
ment's delay  he  swept  into  Italy,  took  possession  of  all 
the  open  country,  and  finally,  in  410,  stormed  the  city 
itself,  now  for  almost  a  thousand  years  untouched  by  ah 
enemy.  What  Alaric  would  have  done  with  the  penin- 
sula, now  virtually  his  conquest,  no  one  can  say.  As  he 
was  on  the  point  of  crossing  over  into  Africa  to  com- 
pel that  province  to  forward  the  usnal  food  supplies 
to  Rome  he  died  suddenly,  and  the  Visigoths  elected 


70  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Athaulf,  liis  brother-in-law,  to  be  tlieir  king.  He  seems 
to  have  thought  it  hopeless  to  try  to  found  a  permanent 
kingdom  in  Italy  and  led  his  people  into  Gaul.  There, 
without  any  formal  alliance  with  the  Romans,  he  married 
his  prisoner,  PLicidia,  the  sister  of  Honorius,  and  aided 
to  put  down  the  usurping  tyrants.  After  his  death  his 
successor,  Wallia,  formed  a  compact  with  the  emperor, 
and  recovered  for  the  em^^ire  a  part  of  the  territory  which 
had  been  occupied  by  the  Germans  in  Spain,  and  finally, 
in  419,  by  a  new  treaty,  the  Yisigoths  received  a  perma- 
nent grant  of  land  in  southwestern  Gaul,  as  nominal 
Eoman  subjects.  This  formed  the  beginning  of  the 
Visigothic  kingdom,  which  lasted  until  the  invasion  of 
the  Saracens  in  the  eighth  century.  From  this  begin- 
ning it  gradually  spread  toward  the  north  until  it  reached 
the  Loire,  and  toward  the  south  until  it  embraced  the 
whole  Spanish  peninsula.  As  they  had  been  the  first 
to  break  the  Roman  frontier,  so  they  were  the  first  to 
found  a  permanent  and  recognized  kingdom  within  the 
empire — the  recognized  kingdom  of  the  Burgundians  be- 
ing a  year  or  two  later.  -- 

Nearly  all  the  Germans  who  had  settled  in  Sj)ain  were 
gradually  conquered  and  absorbed  in  the  Visigothic 
state.  But  the  Vandals,  in  429,  abandoned  their  Span- 
ish lands  and  crossed  over  into  Africa.  According  to  a 
doubtful  story  they  were  invited  by  a  disaffected  Roman 
governor ;  more  likel}^  they  dreaded  the  approach  of  the 
Visigoths,  who  had,  in  their  first  invasion  of  Spain,  de- 
stroyed a  part  of  the  Vandal  race.  In  Africa  they  met 
with  some  vigorous  resistance,  but  in  a  few  years  had 
gained  possession  of  it  all,  and  rapidly  developed  a  naval 
power  which  became  the  terror  of  the  Mediterranean, 
even  as  far  as  Constantinople.  In  455  they  seized  the 
city  of  Rome  and  held  it  for  a  few  days,  sacking  it  more 
savagely  than  Alaric  had  done. 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  71 

Just  at  this  time  a  clanger  far  more  serious  than  came 
from  any  German  invasion  thi'eatened  the  dying  empire 
— more  serious  because  it  would  mean  the  triumph  of  a 
more  hopeless  Asiatic  £^nd  Mongolian  barbarism.  The 
invasion  of  the  Huns^  which  had  set  the  Germans  in 
motion,  had  resulted  in  the  formation  of  a  Hunnic  em- 
pire north  of  the  Danube,  to  which  most  of  Germany  was 
subject.  Now  a  great  king  had  come  to  the  throne,  At- 
tila,  the  Scourge  of  God.  Seemingly  atire  with  that  pur- 
poseless, senseless  rage  of  conquest  which  has  led  more 
than  one  devastating  Mongolian  host,  he  fell,  with  his 
great  army,  in  which  many  German  nations  were  serv- 
ing, on  Gaul.  But  the  Mongolians  have  never  yet  been 
able  to  do  in  the  West  what  they  have  so  often  done  in 
the  East,  in  the  way  of  almost  unlimited  conquest,  and 
in  Gaul  his  invasion  was  speedily  stopped.  Aetius,  him- 
self of  barbarian  descent,  had  succeeded  in  adding  to  the 
Roman  army  which  he  had  brought  together,  the  forces 
of  the  German  states  in  Gaul,  Yisigoths,  Burgundians, 
and  Franks,  persuaded  that  their  own  best  interests 
were  identical  with  Rome's.  In  the  great  battle  of  the 
nations  which  followed,  in  451,  in  the  Catalaunian  plain, 
German  and  Roman  stood  together  for  European  and 
Aryan  civilization  against  Asiatic  and  Mongolian,  and 
saved  the  day.  In  the  next  year  Attila  invaded  Italy, 
but  almost  at  the  beginning  of  his  march  turned  back 
and  retired  to  his  own  lands.  Why  we  do  not  know,  per- 
haps impressed  by  the  solemn  embassy  of  Pope  Leo  I., 
more  probably  hindered  by  some  more  material  difficulty. 
Hardly  had  he  reached  home  when  he  suddenly  died, 
his  empire  fell  to  pieces,  and  the  Germans,  who  had  been 
subject  to  it,  again  became  independenj;. 

In  the  years  of  Attila's  invasions  the  Saxons  were 
gaining  their  first  permanent  hold  upon  Britain*  As 
early  as  the   end   of   the   third   century  their   piratical 


72  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

attacks  had  begun  Exactly  after  the  style  of  their  rela- 
tives, the  vikings  of  a  later  time,  they  had  sailed  along 
the  coast  and  plundered  any  unguarded  spot.  The 
Eomans  had  been  obliged  to  organize  a  sjjecial  coast- 
guard, under  the  Count  of  the  Saxon  Shore,  to  protect 
the  23rovince  from  their  raids.  When  the  Roman  troops 
left  Britain  to  its  fate,  in  407,  the  Saxons  soon  found 
out  theu"  opportunity.  The  attacks  of  another  enemy, 
the  barbarian  Celts  of  the  north  and  west;  upon  the 
Romanized  inhabitants,  only  made  it  easier  for  this 
more  dangerous  foe  to  gain  a  permanent  foothold,  even 
with  the  consent  of  the  pro^incials.  But  once  lauded 
they  could  not  be  kept  within  boimds.  More  and  more 
came  ;  many  little  kingdoms  were  founded,  till  almost 
the  whole  eastern  and  southern  shores  were  occupied. 
The  resistance  of  the  Celts  to  the  advance  of  the  Saxons 
seems  to  have  been,  however,  much  the  most  obstinate 
and  stubborn  which  any  German  invasion  encountered. 
The  result  of  this  was  that  the  German  new-comers  did 
not  settle  themselves  down  here,  as  elsewhere,  in  the 
midst  of  a  Roman  population,  which  they  treated  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  as  on  an  equality  with  themselves, 
and  which  far  outnumbered  them.  If  the  provincials 
were  not  actually  exterminated  or  driven  back,  which 
seems  improbable,  they  were  reduced  to  a  decidedly 
inferior  position,  very  likely  to  slavery,  so  that  they 
were  able  to  exercise  no  such  influence  upon  their  con- 
querors as  other  provincials  did.' 

In  the  meantime  Italy  itself  was  lost  to  the  empire, 
except  for  a  brief  recovery  in  the  next  century.  The 
death  of  Valentiuian  III.,  in  455,  had  brought  the  house 

'  That  tlie  Anglo  Saxons,  however,  continued  some  of  the  Roman 
arrangements,  especially  in  the  matter  of  the  villa  or  farm  organization, 
seems  probable,  and  further  investigation  is  likely  to  increase  our  knowl- 
edge of  their  indebtedness. 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  73 

of  Theodosius  to  an  end.  A  rapid  succession  of  power- 
less emperors  followed,  nearly  all  of  them  appointed 
and  deposed  by  tlie  leaders  of  the  German  troops,  who 
were  now  the  only  protectors  of  Italy.  Finally  the  last 
of  them,  Eomulus  Augustulus,  was  deposed  in  476,  and 
the  leader  of  the  Germans,  Odovacar,  determined  to 
appoint  no  successor.  An  embassy  was  sent  to  Con- 
stantinople to  recognize  Zeno  as  emperor  of  the  re- 
imited  empire,  and  to  ask  him  to  appoint  Odovacar  as 
his  representative  in  Italy.  This  is  the  so-called  Fall 
of  the  Western  Empire;  but  it  was  not  recognized  as 
such  by  either  the  Eastern  or  the  Western  Romans,  or 
by  the  Germans  themselves,  even  though  Odovacar's 
request  had  not  been  granted  by  Zeno.  Odovacar  ruled 
the  Germans  who  were  in  Italy  as  their  king,  and  he 
was  at  the  head  of  a  practically  independent  kingdom, 
but  he  did  not  understand  that  fact  as  clearly  as  we  do, 
and,  in  the  theory  of  the  time,  he  was  still  commanding 
a  Roman  army  and  guarding  a  Roman  pro\dnce  under 
the  emperor.  All  the  pro\dnces  of  the  Western  Empire 
were  now  occupied  by  German  kingdoms,  except  a  frag- 
ment here  and  there ;  but  all  those  on  the  continent 
still  regarded  themselves  as  in  the  empire,  and  acknowl- 
edged at  least  a  nominal  subjection  to  the  emperor. 

Odovacar's  reign  was  not  long.  On  the  breaking  up 
of  Attila's  kingdom  the  Ostrogoths  had  been  received 
into  the  empire,  and  given  lands  south  of  the  Danube. 
Here,  more  recently,  they  had  become  very  troublesome 
imder  their  young  king  Thcodoric,  and  when  he  fiually 
proposed  to  Zeno  to  recover  Italy  from  Odovacar,  the 
offer  was  readily  accepted.  The  conquest  was  not  alto- 
gether easy,  and  occupied  some  years ;  but  it  was  at  last 
completed,  and  Odovacar.was  slain  by  the  hand  of  Theo- 
doric.  The  Ostrogothic  kingdom  thus  established  was 
the  most  remarkable   of  all   the   early  German   states. 


74  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Tlieodoric  had  spent  his  early  life  as  a  hostage  in  Con- 
stantinople, and  if  he  did  not  learn  to  read  and  write 
there,  he  learned  many  other  things.  If  we  may  judge 
by  the  tendency  of  his  reign,  rather  than  by  any  specific 
acts  which  prove  his  policy  beyond  dispute,  he  seems 
to  have  recognized  more  consciously  than  any  other 
barbarian  king,  the  fact  that  any  permanent  state  must 
be  based  on  a  union  of  the  two  populations,  and  the 
two  civilizations  in  a  new  common  nation.  If  it  is 
impossible  to  show  that  he  deliberately  sought  such  a 
union,  it  is  certain  that  his  policy,  if  it  could  have  been 
continued  for  a  generation  or  two  longer,  would  have 
produced  such  a  result.  He  continued  in  operation  the 
Roman  laws,  judicial  tribunals,  administrative  system, 
and  taxes.  He  divided  lands  among  the  Goths  without 
exciting  the  hatred  of  the  Romans,  and  Romans  and 
Goths  served  together  in  tribunals  for  the  hearing  of 
cases  in  which  the  parties  were  of  the  two  peoples.  Agri- 
culture and  commerce  revived,  means  of  communication 
were  improved,  and  art  and  literature  seemed  to  feel 
ncAV  life.  Order  was  maintained,  property  was  secure, 
and  toleration  enforced.  But  more  than  a  single  genera- 
tion is  needed  to  bring  about  a  real  union  between  two 
such  widely  differing  races  as  these.  Progress  under 
Theodoric  was  too  rapid  for  endurance  ;  indeed,  in  many 
cases,  it  seemed  to  be  more  real  than  it  actually  was, 
and  after  his  death  discord  and  discontent,  held  down 
by  the  power  of  his  will,  revealed  themselves  rapidly. 
In  another  generation  the  Ostrogothic  kingdom  and  the 
Ostrogothic  race  were  things  of  the  past. 

There  had  been  a  great  recovery  of  strength  in  the 
empire  in  the  East.  The  army  had  been  improved  and 
the  finances  set  in  order.  And  now  the  great  Emperor 
Justinian  had  come  to  the  throne  with  the  ambition  to 
restore  the  old  control  over  the  "West,  and  to  bring  back 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  76 

as  many  of  the  provinces  as  possible  to  actual  obedience. 
He  had  not  merely  an  army  and  resources,  but  lie  had 
the  no  less  necessary  condition  of  success,  one  of  the 
great  generals  of  history,  Belisarius.  A  quarrel  in  the 
Vandal  vojal  family,  the  dej)osing  of  a  king  descended 
on  the  mother's  side  from  the  imperial  house  of  Theo- 
dosius,  gave  him  an  opportunity  to  make  his  first  attack 
on  Africa,  and  in  a  brief  campaign  that  province  was 
restored  to  the  empire.  Then  came  the  turn  of  Italy, 
and  although  the  Goths  made  a  most  heroic  resistance, 
and  were  able  to  prolong  the  struggle  for  twenty  years, 
the  odds  against  them  were  too  great.  Their  kingdom 
fell,  and  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  the  early  German 
nations  disappeared  from  history,  the  few  survivors  join- 
ing the  Visigoths  in  Spain. 

A  very  important  result  of  this  brief  recovery  of  Italy 
by  the  Koman  power  was  the  introduction  there,  into  use 
and  into  the  schools,  of  the  Justinian  Code.  The  Ostro- 
goths had  made  use  of  the  Theodosian  Code  for  such  Ko- 
man law  as  they  had  need  of,  and  the  other  German  states 
continued  to  do  this.  But  now  the  more  complete  Jus- 
tinian Code  was  brought  to  Italy  and  survived  there  to 
be  made  the  foundation,  after  some  centuries,  of  a  re- 
newed and  most  influential  study  of  the  Roman  law, 
through  all  the  West. 

The  southern  part  of  Italy  was  destined  to  remain 
under  the  government  of  the  emperor  at  Constantinople 
for  five  hundred  3'ears,  but  the  northern  part  v.-as  speedily 
lost.  It  was  occupied,  after  fifteen  years,  by  the  Lo^^ 
bards,  coming  fi'om  the  same  region  as  the  Ostrogoths, 
the  last  of  the  invasions  of  this  period,  and  the  last  king- 
dom to  be  established  on  Roman  soil.  Their  occupation 
of  the  north,  however,  was  never  complete.  Venice  re- 
mained independent,  nominally  under  the  emperor,  and' 
Ravenna  and  a  strip  along  the  eastern  coast  and  across  to 


76  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOlSr 

the  western,  including  Rome,  remained  under  the  Roman 
governor,  the  Exarch  of  Ravenna.  Rome  was  gradually 
cut  off  from  these  other  lands  by  the  slow  Lombard  ad- 
vance, and  the  opportunity  was  presented  to  the  bishops 
of  Rome,  Avhicli  they  were  not  slow  to  utilize,  to  become 
virtually  independent,  and  to  found  a  little  principality 
as  temporal  rulers.  JTliis  forms  an  intimate  part,  how- 
ever, of  a  wider  cuiTent  of  events  in  the  West  which  we 
must  soon  take  up. 

One  fact  of  very  great  importance  for  all  this  long 
period  of  conquest,  but  one  easy  to  be  overlooked  in  the 
history  of  more  stirring  events,  is  that  the  life  of  the 
provincial,  on  the  country  lands  and  in  the  towns,  goes 
on  much  the  same  as  before.  He  is  subjected  to  a  rapid 
change  of  masters ;  he  is  deprived  now  and  again  of  a 
part  of  his  lands ;  he  must  submit  to  occasional  plunder- 
ing ;  life  and  property  are  not  secure.  But  he  lives  on 
and  produces  enough  to  keep  the  world  alive.  He  takes 
himself  no  part  in  the  wars.  He  has  apparently  little 
interest  in  the  result ;  indeed,  the  coming  in  of  the  Ger- 
man may  be  often  an  improvement  of  condition  for  him. 
He  had  not  been  altogether  prosperous  or  secure  before. 
At  any  rate  he  keeps  at  work,  and  he  holds  to  his 
language,  and  to  his  legal  and  economic  customs,  and  to 
his  religion,  and  he  becomes  thus  a  most  important  biit 
disregarded  factor  of  the  future. 

Such  is,  in  brief,  and  mth  a  single  exception,  reserved 
for  separate  treatment,  the  history  of  the  introduction  of 
the  German  peoples  into  the  classic  world.  As  we  pass 
in  outline  the  history  of  this  conquest  we  cannot  avoid 
the  question  why  this  Roman  power,  which  so  short  a 
time  beforehand  made  the  conquest  of  the  world,  was  able 
to  offer  no  more  effectual  resistance  to  these  invaders.' 

'  On  the  fall  of  Rome  the  following  should  be  read :  Hodgkiu,  Italy 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  77 

If  we  examine  carefully  the  series  of  events,  tlie  imme- 
diate reason  is  not  difficult  to  see.  The  Roman  power  was 
exhausted  when  the  tinal  attack  came.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence that  the  German  onset  was  in  any  decisive  way 
more  violent  now  than  two  centuries  earlier,  but  at  the 
middle  of  the  second  century  the  Romans  were  still  able 
to  repel  the  attack  with  success,  if  not  easily.  It  would 
perhaps  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  Marcus  Aurelius, 
in  his  struggle  with  the  Quadi  and  Marcomauni  was  the 
first  to  feel  the  growing  exhaustion  of  the  state,  and  the 
fii'st  to  resort  to  the  doubtful  expedients  so  common 
later  to  maintain  the  strength  of  the  army.  But  the 
state  still  appeared  strong,  and  was  in  reality  strong 
enough  for  two  centuries  to  come  to  keep  off  its  enemies 
in  some  way.  But  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  even 
that  appearance  of  strength  was  gone.  The  fi'ontiers 
could  no  longer  be  guarded,  the  provinces  were  empty, 
the  capital  itself  hardly  defended.  The  Roman  strength 
was  exhausted.  But  in  saying  this  we  only  remove  the 
'question  one  step  further  back.  What  are  the  reasons 
why  this  Roman  race,  the  strongest  of  the  world  up  to 
this  time,  had  declined  so  rapidly  and  now  fell  easily  a 
prey  to  enemies  it  had  once  overcome  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  give  any  complete  and  accurate  con- 
ception of  the  causes  which  led  to  the  fall  of  Rome  in  a 
few  paragraphs.  Those  causes  were  so  numerous  and  so 
involved  with  one  another  in  their  actiou,  they  were  at 
work  through  so  long  a  time,  the  full  understanding  of 
their  operation  requires  so  extensive  a  knowledge  of  the 
laws  which  govern  the  economic  and  political  action  of 
men,  that  volumes  would  be  required  for  a  clear  presenta- 
tion of  the  subject.  A  brief  account  of  the  matter  is 
made  still  further  difficult  from  the  fact  that  the  fall  of 

and  Her  Inm.ders,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  532-013  ;  Bury,  Later  Roman  Empire, 
Vol.  I.,  pp.  35-30  ;  and  Seeley,  liomaii  Imperialism, 


78  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Rome  has  been  very  often  made  the  subject  of  partial 
and  incomplete  treatment  in  order  to  prove  some  particu- 
lar point,  perhaps  to  make  vivid  the  contrast  between  the 
Christian  church  and  the  heathen  society  which  it  came 
to  regenerate;  perhaps  to  make  manifest  the  political 
dangers  which  arise  from  the  moral  corruption  of  a 
people.  Undoubtedly,  the  Christian  church  had  a  mis- 
sion of  regeneration  of  great  importance  for  the  an- 
cient society,  as  well  as  for  the  individual,  but  no  prog- 
ress is  made  toward  proving  this  fact  by  picturing  the 
dark  side  of  that  society,  only,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  its 
virtues.  Undoubtedly,  alsq^moral  corruption  is  a  most 
fruitful  source  of  political  ruin,  but  hardly  in  the  way  in 
which  the  professional  moralists  would  sometimes  have 
us  think.  What  can  be  attemjDted  here  is  barely  more 
than  an  enumeration,  as  complete  as  possible  within 
these  limits,  of  the  various  causes  which  worked  together 
to  undermine  the  strength  of  the  E-oman  state. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said,  that  these  causes  are  the 
same  as  those  which  led  to  the  overthrow  of  the  republic 
and  the  establishment  of  the  empire.  Coming  plainly 
into  view  by  the  close  of  the  second  Punic  War,  they  con- 
tinue in  operation  through  the  whole  later  history  un- 
checked, or  barely  checked  for  the  moment  here  and 
there,  and  bringing  with  them  naturally  other  related 
causes  and  increasingly  disastrous  results.  The  estab- 
lishment of  the  empire  at  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 
era  was  undoubtedly,  in  the  condition  of  things  at  the 
time,  a  political  necessity,  but  that  is  not  the  same  thing 
as  saying  that  the  causes  which  led  to  the  fall  of  the  re- 
public were  beneficial  causes  ;  and  no  one  would  proba- 
bly seriously  maintain,  though  some  have  seemed  to  imply 
as  much,  that  the  Romans  would  have  found  it  impossible 
to  adapt  the  government  of  the  republic  to  the  wider 
demands  of  the  empire,  had  they  preserved  their  earlier 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  79 

characteristics.  The  monarchy  became  a  political  neces- 
sity, not  because  the  Romans  were  unable  to  govern  the 
empire,  but  because  they  were  no  longer  able  to  govern 
themselves,  and  the  causes  which  had  brought  them  to 
this  pass  continuing  to  act  as  before,  in  the  end  ex- 
hausted the  power  of  the  empire.  That  the  republic 
fell  under  the  influence  of  these  causes  in  a  much  shorter 
time  than  the  empire  is  an  instance  of  the  abundantly 
supported  historical  principle  that  political  corruption 
and  decline  are  far  more  dangerous  to  a  democratic  gov- 
ernment than  to  a  monarchy. 

The  causes  of  the  fall  of  Rome  may  be  roughly  divided_ 
into  two  great  groups-|-first,  the  moral  causes ;  second, 
the  econ^mic.^It  must  be  acknowledged,  however,  that 
this  division  is  not  a  strictly  scientific  one.  The  two 
classes  are  not  co-ordinate.  The  economic  causes  are 
more  immediate  in  their  action,  those  which  are  strictly 
moral  causes  are  more  indirect  and  remote.  They  are 
the  causes  of  causes.  The  influence  of  personal  im- 
morality and  corruption  upon  the  state  has  often  been 
made  the  subject  of  careless  writing,  and  sometimes  of 
wild  speculation,  and  is  a  matter  which  needs  more  real 
investigation  than  it  has  yet  received.  It  seems  to  be 
altogether  likely,  however,  that  such  an  investigation  will 
show  that  private  vice  becomes  dangerous  to  the  state 
only  where  it  is  translated  into  political  corruption  or 
economic  disease,  and  that  individual  immorality  may  go 
very  far — that  it  has  gone  in  some  actual  cases,  indeed, 
almost  if  not  quite  as  far  as  among  the  Romans — without 
involving  the  destruction  of  the  state,  if  it  does  not  affect 
the  public  life  or  the  economic  resources  of  the  nation. 
It  is  because  certain  forms  of  personal  vice  translate 
themselves  so'  quickly  and  easily  into  public  causes  that 
the  morals  of  its  citizens  are  of  importance  to  the  state, 
as  a  matter  of  self-protection. 


80  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOir 

The  vices  which  were  especially  prevalent  among  the 
Komans  were  precisely  of  this  sort.  These  were,  in  the 
first  place,  the  physical  vices — dnmkenness,  gluttony, 
and  licentiousness.  It  is  entirely  impossible  to  give  any 
detailed  account  of  the  condition  of  a  large  portion  of  the 
Boman  society  in  these  respects.  Fortunately,  it  is  not 
necessary.  The  description  has  been  so  often  attempted 
for  one  pui'pose  or  another,  and  has  been  made  so  frank 
and  unreserved,  that  a  popular  impression  has  been  un- 
doubtedly created  that  these  vices  were  far  more  uni- 
versal and  extreme  throughout  the  Roman  world  than 
they  really  were.  No  doubt  they  did  affect  certahi  classes 
of  the  population — the  country  people,  the  middle  classes 
where  these  still  existed — to  a  greater  extent  than  a  cor- 
responding condition  would  in  modern  times,  because,  for 
one  reason,  of  the  existence  of  slavery,  and  yet  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  extreme  cases  and  the  most  injurious  results 
are  to  be  found  in  the  large  cities  and  among  the  Wealthy 
class,  while  the  provinces  and  the  middle  classes  were 
comparatively  uncontaminated.  It  seems  probable,  how- 
ever, though  by  no  means  certain,  that  the  influence  of 
these  vices  did  extend  far  enough  to  affect  the  nation- 
al life.  Their  influence  upon  the  race,  where  it  is  felt, 
is  precisely  the  same  as  that  upon  the  individual.  En- 
ergy, will-power,  self-reliance  in  the  face  of  danger,  are 
lost,  and  the  recuperative  and  reproductive  power  declines 
or  disappears.  These  are  exactly  the  results  which  ap- 
peared, from  some  cause,  throughout  the  Eoman  empire 
in  its  last  age.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  to  which  atten- 
tion has  been  called,  that,  though  many  of  the  Roman 
towns  were  still  strongly  walled,  and  though  the  Germans 
were  very  unskilled  in  the  art  of  siege,  yet,  though  num- 
bers of  the  towns  maintain  themselves  for  a  time,  there 
are  few  instances  during  the  whole  period  of  the  conquest 
of  heroic  resistance  to  the  invaders  by  the  population 


THE   GERMAN   CONQUEST  81 

of  tlie  provinces.  It  is  almost  always  a  barbarian  general 
and  a  barbarian  army  which  undertakes  the  defence  ;  or, 
where  we  find  a  case  of  a  different  sort,  as  in  the  defence 
of  Orleans  against  the  Huns,  there  is  manifestly  present 
a  new  element  of  energy  and  self-reliance  not  supplied  by 
the  Koman  society  proper,  but  by  the  Christian  j)ortion 
of  it.  Such  a  decline  of  the  national  will-power  it  would 
hardly  be  correct  to  trace  to  the  operation  of  this  one 
physical  influence  alone,  and  it  is  altogether  likely  that 
no  such  effect  would  have  followed  had  not  this  cause 
been  combined  with  others  which  are  to  be  noticed  later, 
and  yet  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  this  influence  when 
present  is  usually  a  decisive  one,  and  may  have  contri- 
buted as  much,  or  more,  than  any  other  single  force  to 
the  common  result.  So  the  other  results  which  followed 
from  this  group  of  moral  causes — decline  of  population, 
inability  to  recover  losses  from  plagues  and  famines,  de- 
struction of  capital,  indifference  to  public  affairs — are  per- 
haps best  looked  at  among  the  economic  causes,  where 
they  naturally  appear.  It  is  into  economic  causes,  prop- 
erly speaking,  that  the  physical  vices  translate  themselves 
when  they  affect  the  public  life. 

To  this  group  of  causes  we  must  add  the  operation  of 
the  intense  and  desperate  straggle  for  wealth  which 
begins  under  the  republic  and  continues  imder  the 
empu'e — a  less  conspicuous  feature,  perhaps  of  the  later 
period,  but  not  less  fatal  in  its  effects.  Some  later  times 
have  probably  seen  as  inordinate  a  passion  for  wealth  as 
the  Roman,  and  as  crafty  scheming  to  get  it  without 
earning  it,  and  this  condition  of  things,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  physical  vices,  seems  to  become  a  serious  danger 
to  the  state  only  when  it  is  translated,  when  it  leads  to 
the  misuse  of  ofiicial  position  or  legislative  power.  The 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  last  age  of  the  rei^ublic 
made  this  translation  into  a  political  cause  extremely 
6 


82  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

easy,  almost  unavoidable.  The  government  of  lately 
conquered  provinces,  to  be  exploited  for  tlie  benefit  of 
tlie  state,  offered  a  secure  opportunity  for  extortion  and 
peculation  which  the  official,  trained  in  the  spirit  of  the 
time,  could  hardly  resist.  Decided  reformation  in  this 
regard  was  certainly  made  under  the  empire,  but  the 
spirit  and  the  practice  never  disappeared,  and  it  was  a 
source  of  great  weakness  to  the  empire  in  the  days  of  de- 
cline, and  a  fatal  obstacle  to  thorough  reformation  that 
so  large  a  proportion  of  the  ofiicial  class  looked  upon 
their  offices  as  a  source  of  gain  or  advancement  and  were 
ready  on  any  occasion  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  the 
state  to  their  own  private  interests.' 

When  we  turn  to  the  economic  causes  which  aided  in 
the  fall  of  Kome  we  stand  appalled  at  their  number  and 
variety.  It  would  seem  as  if,  when  the  empire  had  once 
started  on  the  downward  path,  all  things  worked  to- 
gether against  it,  and  all  the  springs  of  national  pros- 
perity were  poisoned.  It  is  possible  here  to  point  out 
only  the  most  important  of  these  causes,  and,  in  such  a 
brief  account,  we  shall  find  our  way  to  a  clear  under- 
standing only  if  we  remember  that  the  immediate  cause 
of  the  fall  of  Home  was  exhaustion — exhaustion  of  re- 
sources and  exhaustion  of  population.  There  are  to  be 
grouped  together,  then,  the  most  decisive  causes  which 
show  how  the  accumulated  capital  of  the  empire — in 
property  and  in  men — came  to  be  destroyed,  and  why  no 
more  was  produced  to  take  its  place. 

Slavery  is  naturally  the  first  among  these  causes  to 
occur  to  mind,  and,  whatever  may  have  been  the  moral 
dangers  of  the  Roman  slave  system,  the  economic  evils 
which  it  worked  were  still  more  fatal  to  the  state.  In  the 
first  place,  it  was  a  system  wasteful  and  unproductive  of 

^  See  above,  p.  66,  tlie  extremely  important  iustauce  at  the  crossing  of. 
the  Danube  by  the  Visigoths. 


THE  GERMAN   CONQUEST  83 

men.  By  it  a  large  part  of  the  natural  population  of  the 
empire,  for  this  was  proljably,  even  in  the  later  times, 
the  chief  source  of  slaves,  was  placed  in  a  condition  not 
merely  where  it  was  used  up  and  disappeared  with  fear- 
ful rapidity,  but  also  where  it  tended  to  reproduce  itself 
much  less  rapidly  than  it  would  have  done  as  a  body  of 
free  laborers.  In  this  way  there  was  probably  always 
a  considerable  loss  of  population,  certainly  the  slave 
system  went  far  to  prevent  what  should  have  been  the 
normal  increase,  and  to  make  it  impossible  to  recover 
sudden  losses  of  population,  such  as  occurred  in  times  of 
pestilence.  Slavery  is  also  an  expensive  means  of  pro- 
duction. The  returns  on  the  capital  invested,  except  in 
unusual  conditions,  are  small,  and  the  incentive  to  im- 
provement in  methods  of  production  extremely  slight. 
The  history  of  our  Southern  States  since  the  Civil  War, 
as  compared  with  their  earlier  history,  shows  this  con- 
clusively. And  it  destroys  capital  with  great  rapidity. 
Economically  the  slave  is  merely  a  machine.  The  use  of 
a  machine  tends  to  destroy  it.  But  when  a  modern  steam- 
engine  is  destroyed  it  is  easily  and  quickly  replaced  and 
the  total  loss  to  the  capital  of  the  generation  in  material 
rendered  useless  is  not  great.  Much  of  it  may  be  used 
over  again  to  make  some  new  machine.  But  when  the 
slave  was  used  up  not  merely  was  so  much  capital  de- 
stroyed but  a  part  of  the  total  productive  force  of  the  gen- 
eration was  permanently  annihilated.  It  could  not  be  re- 
placed. The  slave  system  invested  a  large  proportion  of 
the  capital  of  the  empire  in  a  relatively  unprofitable  form, 
and  tended  to  use  up  rapidly  its  productive  force.  Again, 
the  slave  system  tended  to  extinguish  the  class  of  free 
laborers  both  in  city  and  country.  In  the  cities  it  did 
this  by  supplying  the  demand  for  labor  of  all  kinds,  and 
by  making  labor  odious — never,  perhaps,  to  such  an 
extent  as  in  our  Southern  States,  but  still  in  a  marked 


84  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

degree.  In  the  country  it  gave  tlie  capitalist  advantage 
over  the  small  landowner  in  a  variety  of  ways,  and  made 
it  easy  to  drive  him  to  the  wall  and  to  swallow  up  his 
holding.  As  a  result,  although  the  class  of  small  culti- 
vators never  entirely  disappeared,  yet  in  some  parts  of 
the  empire  very  few  were  left,  and  vast  estates  cultivated 
by  slave  labor  were  formed  everywhere,  and  the  middle 
class,  the  solid  resource  of  every  state,  tended  to  disap- 
pear between  the  very  wealthy  on  one  side  and  the  slave 
class  and  the  city  rabble  on  th^  other.  It  must  be 
remembered,  however,  that  the  positive  evil  effects  of 
slavery  were  felt  more  decisively  in  the  earlier  than  in 
the  later  'period  of  the  empire.  As  the  empire  drew  to 
an  end  the  economic  conditions  were  forcing  upon  it, 
unconsciously  but  inevitabl}',  the  extinction  of  slavery — 
its  transformation  into  serfdom,  and,  although  this  trans- 
formation was  not  completed  in  Eoman  days,'  it  had 
gone  far  enough  to  survive  the  German  conquest,  and 
far  enough  to  be  a  decided  gain  both  to  the  state  and  to 
tlie  slave. 

Another  economic  cause  of  primary  importance  was  the 
public  games  and  the  free  distribution  of  food,  especially 
the  latter.  The  public  games  were  a  great  drain  uj^on 
the  resources  of  the  state,  but  the  food  donatives  were 
a  more  serious  evil.  The  distribution  of  wheat  to  the 
poorer  citizens  at  a  price  below  the  market  price,  which 
was  begun  toward  the  end  of  the  second  century  B.C. 
as  a  demagogic  measure,  could  not  well  be  stopped.  One 
demagogue  bid  against  another  and  the  emj^ire  was  ob- 
liged to  continue  the  practice.  It  resulted  finally  in 
the  regular  distribution  of  baked  loaves  of  bread,  and 
occasionally  at  least  of  oil,  wane,  meat,  and  clothes,  and 
it  w^as  extended  gradually  from  the  capital  to  the  larger 

'  Indeed,  slavery  does  not  entirely  disappear  from  Europe  during  the 
middle  ages. 


THE  GERMAN   CONQUEST  85 

provincial  cities,  and  even  to  the  smaller  towns.  The 
worst  effect  of  it  was  not  that  it  maintained  in  the 
towns  an  nnemj^loyed  mob,  hard  to  be  used  for  any  good 
purpose  but  easy  to  be  excited  by  any  demagogic  appeal. 
Two  results  followed,  which  were  even  more  fatal.  In 
the  first  place,  tho  government,  at  public  expense,  pre- 
sented a  constant  temptation  to  the  middle  class  to 
abandon  the  struggle  for  existence  and  to  sink  into  the 
proletariat.  Tho  hard-pressed  poor  farmer  who  saw  all 
his  toil  fail  to  improve  his  condition  was  easily  persuaded 
to  escape  from  the  grinding  competition  into,  the  town 
and  into  a  class  entirely  unproductive,  or  which  pro- 
duced only  the  least  possible.  But  the  decline  of  pro- 
duction was  not  all.  A  continually  increasing  portion  of 
the  wealth  produced  each  year  by  the  classes  which  re- 
mained productive  was  destroyed  without  adding  any- 
thing to  the  permanent  capital  of  the  empire.  The  prod- 
ucts of  the  provinces  were  drained  into  the  towns  and 
sent  nothing  back — the  expense  being  met  by  a  taxation 
which  rested  chiefly  on  the  land  itself.  In  normal  con- 
ditions the  products  of  the  farm  go  into  the  city.  But 
while  the  artisan  is  eating  the  wheat  he  is  making  cloth, 
which  goes  back  to  the  farm  containing  the  total  value 
of  the  wheat.  But  in  Rome  the  economic  result  was 
precisely  the  same  as  if  the  government  had  collected 
the  products  of  the  farm  in  a  heap  and  burned  them. 
That  is  to  say,  at  the  moment  when  the  empire  needed 
most  of  all  to  build  up  a  middle  class  and  to  encourage 
the  accumulation  of  resources,  the  state  was,  by  its  own 
act,  destroying  the  one  and  making  the  other  impossible. 
Another  one  of  those  causes  which  is  commonly  con- 
sidered of  importance  was  the  heavy  and  expensive  taxa- 
tion. It  seems  doiibtful,  however,  whether  the  taxation 
of  the  empire  was  heavier,  or,  indeed,  as  heavy,  as  that  of 
most  modern  states.     If  there  had  been  general  prosper- 


86  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

itj  and  the  production  and  saving  of  wealth  which  ought 
to  have  existed,  it  is  probable  that  a  heavier  burden  of 
taxation  could  have  been  borne  without  serious  incon- 
venience.^ It  was  the  disordered  economic  condition 
which  rendered  the  taxation  injurious,  as  it  undoubtedly 
was.  To  this  must  be  added  the  expensive  method 
of  collection.  The  indirect  taxes  were  farmed  out — a 
method  which  makes  the  collection  a  private  speculation 
and  extorts  from  the  people  much  larger  sums  than  the 
government  receives.  The  land  taxes  were  no  longer 
farmed,  but  the  responsibility  for  collecting  them  and 
turning  them  over  to  the  government  was  placed  upon 
the  local  community  of  larger  landowners — a  method 
which  lent  itself  readily  to  injustice  and  oppression,  and 
which  made  the  prosperous  and  thrifty  man  pay  the  taxes 
of  his  unsuccessful  neighbor.^ 

To  these  more  striking  causes  may  be  added  a  consid- 
erable group  of  hardly  less  effective  ones.  A  debased 
currency  constantly  fluctuating  in  value  and  growing  more 
scanty.  A  constant  drain  of  the  precious  metals — cur- 
rency and  capital — into  the  oriental  states  to  pay  for 
luxuries  of  dress  and  food,  unproductive  and  soon  de- 
stroyed. A  declining  fertility  of  soil,  which  with  the  in- 
creasing lack  of  capital  could  not  be  restored.  A  dimin- 
ishing supply  of  laborers,  felt  severely  in  many  places  by 
the  large  landowners,  and  which  led  to  the  systematic 
introduction  of  barbarians  by  the  government.  A  still 
more  dangerous  incorporation  of  barbarians  into  the  army 

'  The  history  of  many  of  oiir  American  cities  shows  that  a  burden  of 
taxation,  probably  higher  than  rested  on  the  Romans  under  the  empire, 
can  be  borne  without  serious  results — shows,  indeed,  how  high  taxation, 
in  some  cases  at  least,  is  an  unavoidable  result  and  a  sign  of  great  prosper- 
ity and  rapid  growth. 

'^  See  in  Taine's  Ancient  Begiim,  Book  V.,  cliap.  ii. ,  an  interesting 
account  of  the  metliods  and  results  of  a  similar  system  of  tax  collection 
in  France  in  the  eighteenth  century. 


THE   GERMAlsr   COTTQUEST  87 

from  a  similar  lack  of  men.  Natm-al  calamities,  pesti- 
lences, and  earthquakes,  which  certainly  might  fall  upon 
any  state,  but  which  in  the  empire  left  permanent  holes 
in  the  pojDulation,  while  an  economically  healthy  state 
would  have  entirely  recovered  such  losses  in  a  generation 
or  two.  A  declining  police  and  military  protection,  seen 
in  such  facts  as  the  often-told  story  of  the  Frankish  pris- 
oners of  the  Emperor  Probus,'  or  in  the  occasional  inroad 
of  a  German  tribe  which  committed  irreparable  damage 
before  it  could  be  subdued. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  the  direction  in  which 
the  causes  of  the  fall  of  the  Eoman  empire  are  to  be 
sought,  and  to  show  that  long  study  and  a  full  account 
are  necessary  to  any  adequate  presentation  of  them. 
They  lay  deep,  at  the  very  foundation  of  society,  as  is  evi- 
dent from  the  fact  that  in  periods  of  tranquillity  and  ap- 
parent strength,  as  under  the  good  emperors  in  the  second 
century,  or  in  the  fourth  century  from  Constantiue  to  the 
breaking  of  the  Danube  frontier,  there  was  no  recovery, 
no  trustworthy  return  of  strength,  rather  when,  at  the 
close  of  such  a  period,  the  real  test  came,  the  empire  was 
found  to  be  weaker  than  before. 

I  have  used  throughout  the  exjoression  "  fall  of  Rome  " 
as  a  convenient  phrase.  But  if  the  nature  of  the  disease 
from  which  the  empire  suffered  has  been  correctly  indi- 
cated, the  term  is  clearly  an  incorrect  one.  Rome  did 
not  fall.  She  was  overthrown.  Her  strength  was  ex- 
hausted, but  it  was  the  attack  which  was  fatal.  But  for 
that  she  could  undoubtedly  have  recovered.     The  word 

'  Transported  by  the  emperor  to  the  region  of  the  Black  Sea,  they 
seized  upon  some  sliips  and  made  their  way  throngh  the  length  of  the 
Mediterranean,  attacking  cities,  and  apparently  meeting  little  resistance  ; 
finally  they  passed  out  into  the  Atlantic,  and  reached  their  home  in  the 
Rhine  valley. 


8^  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

~^i  ■ 

dferthrown,  in  turn,  conveys  too  strong  an  impression. 
The  empire  was  at  tlie  moment  empty  and  tlie  Germans 
entered  in  and  took  possession. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  serious  mistake  to  regard  tMs  revolu- 
tion exclusively  from  the  stand-point  of  a  "  fall,"  as  if  it 
were  merely  the  destruction  of  the  ancient  civilization. 
It  was  something  far  more  than  that.  It  was  the  neces- 
sary reorganization  and  rearrangement  preparatory  to  a 
new  and  higher  civilization.  From  this  point  of  view 
the  period  of  the  fall  of  Rome  was  an  age  of  progress. 
It  was  not  merely  an  age  of  "  fall,"  but  also  of  conquest, 
and  this  fact,  along  with  the  establishment  of  Christianity, 
is  the  vitally  important  fact  of  these  centuries.  But  it  is 
so  because  it  was  something  more  than  a  mere  conquest. 
The  Germans  brought  with  them  race  characteristics  and 
ideas  and  institutions  which,  though  they  were  those  of 
a  primitive  people,  were  noble  and  well  develoj)ed,  able 
to  enter  into  a  competition  with  those  of  a  higher  civil- 
ization on  something  like  equal  terms.  Add  the  fact 
that  the  Teutonic .  race  became  the  ruling  race  of  Chris- 
tendom, and  we  can  understand  how  it  came  to  be  one 
of  the  determining  sources  of  our  civilization,  and  how 
the  period  of  the  "  fall  of  Rome  "  is  one  of  the  great  con- 
structive ages  of  history. 


CHAPTER  V. 

WHAT  THE   GERMANS  ADDED 

In  passing  to  the  special  consideration  of  the  additions 
which  the  Germans  made  to  the  ancient  civilization  it 
is  necessary  to  give  the  first  place  to  what  was  probably 
their  most  valnable  contribution,  the  Germans  them- 
selves. This  implies  not  merely  that  the  governments 
which  they  set  up  in  the  place  of  the  Roman  were,  in  very 
many  cases,  an  improvement  upon  the  practical  anarchy 
which  passed  under  the  name  of  the  empire,  and  a  wel- 
come relief  to  the  provincials,  as  they  were,  but  also  that 
there  was  a  more  permanent  influence  introduced  in  the 
fact  that  they  brought  in  a  young,  vigorous,  and  healthy 
race  to  form  a  considerable  element  in  the  population  of 
every  European  state.  It  is  possible  that  in  some  parts 
of  the  empire  the  number  of  new  settlers  was  not  large, 
and  yet  it  has  been  said  of  each  of  the  Latin-speaking 
countries  that  it  contains  districts  where  the  German 
physical  characteristics — light  hair  and  blue  eyes — stUl 
predominate  among  the  inhabitants,  and  indicate  a  large 
Teutonic  immigration.  The  amount  of  German  blood 
which  went  to  form  the  modern  nations  must  have  been 
considerable,  for  we  need  to  add  to  the  invading  forces 
the  large  numbers  settled  in  the  empire  earlier  as  slaves 
and  soldiers.  The  German  was,  to  be  sure,  a  savage,  and 
it  may  be  that  his  bringing  in  brought  in  also  greater  ig- 
norance and  decline  and  "darkness"  than  would  other- 


90  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

■wise  have  been ;  but  this  is  not  absolutely  certain,  and 
even  if  admitted,  the  results  justify  the  cost.  Possibly, 
as  has  been  intimated,  the  Roman  world  might  have  re- 
covered its  strength  and  entered  upon  a  new  age  of  pro- 
duction without  their  aid.  But  had  it  done  so,  even 
more  successfully  than  seems  at  all  probable,  the  product 
would  have  lacked  the  qualities  added  by  the  Germans. 
The  settlement  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  was  not  merely  the 
introduction  of  a  new  set  of  ideas  and  institutions  to 
combine  with  the  old,  it  was  also  the  introduction  of 
fresh  blood  and  youthful  mind,  the  muscle  and  the  brains 
which  were  in  the  future  to  do  the  larger  share  of  the 
world's  work. 

Besides  the  addition  of  themselves  they  brought  with 
them  as  a  decided  characteristic  of  the  race,  a  very  high 
Jdea  of  personal  independence,  of  the  value  and  impor- 
tance of  the  individual  man  as  compared  with  the  state. 
This  can  be  seen  in  the  proud  spirit  of  the  individual 
warrior — a  characteristic  of  many  barbarian  races.  It 
can  be  seen  still  more  clearly  in  those  crude  systems  of 
criminal  justice  out  of  which  these  tribes  were  just 
emerging  in  tlie  migration  period.  They  exhibit  the  in- 
jured man  apparently  never  thinking  that  the  public 
authority  is  the  proper  power  to  puuisli  the  wrong-doer, 
but  taking  the  punishment  into  his  own  hands  as  the 
only  natui'al  resort  in  such  a  case.  It  can  be  seen  again 
in  the  fact  that  w^hen  the  state  does  begin  to  assume  the 
right  to  punish  crime,  it  cannot  venture  to  inflict  per- 
sonal chastisement,  or  to  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  the 
freeman.  It  must  limit  itself  to  imposing  money  fines, 
part  of  which  goes  to  the  injured  paiiy  as  indicative  of 
his  rights  in  the  case,  and  it  can  be  seen  finally  in  the 
democratic  cast  of  all  their  earliest  governments.  The 
unit  of  the  whole  public  life  is  the  individual  man,  not 
the  state. 


WHAT  THE  GERMANS  ADDED  91 

We  have  seen  in  the  third  chapter  how  the  early- 
Christianity  taught  a  closely  related  idea ;  how  it  pro- 
claimed certain  rights  and  interests  of  the  individual  to  be 
far  higher  and  more  important  than  any  duties  he  could 
owe  the  state.  How  much  the  one  set  of  these  ideas  re- 
inforced the  other  it  is  impossible  to  say.  We  can  trace 
their  continued  influence  only  by  Avay  of  inference. 
Somewhere  between  the  ancient  days  and  the  present 
the  idea  of  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  state  has 
been  trassformed.  In  the  ancient  time  the  state  was  an 
end  in  and  for  itself  far  more  than  it  has  ever  been  in  the 
modern.  To  the  Greek  or  the  Koman  the  state  was 
everything,  the  individual  comparatively  nothing.  His 
domestic  and  religious  life,  as  well  as  his  political,  found 
their  ultimate  object  in  the  state.  Now,  the  state  is  re- 
garded as  a  means  rather  than  an  end.  Its  object  is 
thought  to  be  to  secure  for  the  individual  the  fullest  and 
freest  development  possible  in  a  community  life,  and  the 
state  which  secures  this  with  the  least  governing  and  the 
least  machinery  is  held  to  be  the  best  state.  Whether 
this  \'iew  of  the  state  is  to  be  a  permanent  one  or  not, 
even  if,  as  some  vaguely  expect,  the  modern  state  should 
be  destined  to  give  way  in  the  end  to  some  more  highly 
organized  form  of  common  action  than  historj"  has  yet 
known,  still  the  change  Avhich  put  the  modern  in  the 
place  of  the  ancient  idea  would  remain  one  of  the  most 
important  changes  in  the  history  of  civilization,  and  the 
question  of  the  reasons  for  it  one  of  the  most  interesting 
questions.  The  natural  influence  of  Christian  teaching 
and  German  spirit  working  together  would  seem  to  be  to 
lead  to  such  a  transformation.  That  they  did  actually 
do  so  is  far  easier  to  assert  than  to  prove.  Probably  the 
most  that  can  be  said  confidently  is  this.  The  idea  of 
the  independence  and  supreme  worth  of  the  individual, 
so  strongly  felt  and  expressed  in  the  early  medieval  cen- 


92  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tui'ies  passes  almost  wholly  out  of  the  consciousness  of 
the  later  middle  ages  except  partially  upon  the  political 
side  where  a  closely  related  idea — which  grew,  in  part, 
it  seems  likely,  out  of  this  earlier  one — finds  expression 
in  feudalism.  But  in  general  the  individual  ceases  to  be 
the  primary  element  of  society  and  is  absorbed,  not  now 
in  the  state,  but  in  the  corporation,  the  guild,  the  com- 
mune, the  order,  the  hierarchy.  The  revival  of  the  older 
idea  in  modern  times  is  to  be  traced  with  certainty  only 
to  two  soui"ces.  One  is  that  revolution  of  the  whole 
intellectual  stand-point  of  the  middle  ages  which  Avas 
wrought  by  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation,  recov- 
ering Christian  as  Avell  as  classic  ideas  which  had  long 
been  lost,  emphasizing  again  the  supreme  worth  of  the 
individual  and  establishing  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment. The  other  is  the  gradual  development  of  the 
primitive  German  institutions  into  modem  free  govern- 
ments. These  two  together  form  most  important  sources 
of  the  renewal  of  the  democratic  spirit  ^hich  is  so  char- 
acteristic of  our  age,  and,  with  that,  of  the  emphasis 
which  we  again  lay  on  the  individual  man  and  his  rights.' 

Of  the  new  elements  introduced  by  the  Germans, 
whose  continued  life  and  influence  we  can  most  clearly 

'  That  this  trausformation  was  aided  also  by  economic  causes,  such,  for 
example,  as  the  influence  of  the  colonies  upon  the  old  world,  is  no 
doubt  true,  but  it  is  not  possible  to  do  more  at  present  than  to  point  out 
the  probability.  Many  of  the  demands  of  the  workman  of  to-day  are 
manifestly  quite  as  much  due  to  the  spread  of  democratic  ideas  as  to 
any  direct  economic  cause. 

The  text  refers,  of  course,  to  the  rights  of  the  individual  as  expressed 
in  the  practical  and  institutional  life  of  the  community  rather  than 
in  theoretical  and  speculative  treatises.  The  emphatic  and  repeated 
statement  of  the  rights  of  the  individual,  as  against  the  ruler,  b}'  the  Jes- 
uits of  the  sixteenth  century,  for  instance,  was  of  no  value  in  the  his- 
torical development  of  liberty.  Undoubtedly  the  political  contrivances 
by  which  we   secure  for  the  individual  the  greatest  possible  freedom 


WHAT  THE  GERMANS   ADDED  93 

trace  to  our  own  time,  the  most  important  were  political 
and  institutional. 

The  Germans  were  passing  at  the  time  of  their  con- 
tact M'ith  the  Romans  through  a  stage  of  political  devel- 
opment through  which  the  classic  nations  had  passed 
long  before.  The  political  arrangements  of  the  primitive 
Germans  of  Tacitus  were  in  many  ways  very  closely  like 
those  of  the  primitive  Greeks  of  Homer.  But  in  the 
case  of  the  Germans  the  race  possessed  so  solid  and 
conservative  a  political  character,  and  these  primitive 
institutions  had  received  such  definiteness  of  form  that 
they  were  able  to  survive  for  centuries  the  danger  of  ab- 
sorption and  annihilation  which  faced  them  in  the  more 
highly  developed  Roman  institutions,  and,  through  some 
channels  at  least,  permanently  to  influence  the  public 
life  of  the  world.  And  while  the  classic  nations,  starting 
from  the  same  beginning,  failed  to  construct  successful 
and  permanent  free  governments,  but  ended  in  a  universal 
despotism  in  which  such  of  the  forms  of  free  government 
as  survived  had  lost  all  meaning,  in  the  history  of  the 
Teutonic  nations,  on  the  contrary,  the  experience  of  ab- 
solute monarchy,  through  which  the  germs  of  liberty 
were  destined  to  pass,  did  not  destroy  their  life  or  more 
than  temporarily  check  their  growth. 

It  may  be  said  in  general  that  the  Germans  brought 
in  the  elements  out  of  which  the  intervening  centuries 
have  developed  modern  free  constitutional  governments. 
But  these  elements  are  to  be  recognized  as  clearly  demo- 
cratic much  more  plainly  in  the  Germany  of  Tacitus  than 
in  the  states  which  were  established  on  Roman  soil.      It 

under  an  efficient  government  are,  in  tliemain.  the  outgrowth  of  the 
German  institutions  which  are  considered  in  tlie  following  paragraphs. 
But  the  question  is,  What  was  the  original  source  and  whence  the  con- 
stant reinforcement  of  the  spirit  which  defended  and  developed  these 
primitive  institutions  ? 


94  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

is  evident  that  the  conquest  exposed  them  to  a  double 
danger.  In  the  first  place,  in  those  countries  where  the 
Germans  settled  doA\Ti  in  the  midst  of  a  Roman  popula- 
tion thej  were  exposed  to  the  example  of  the  Eoman 
government  and  to  the  influence  of  the  Roman  state 
machinery,  important  parts  of  which  were  often  allowed 
to  continue  in  operation  at  least  for  a  time,  both  these 
tending  to  impress  on  the  barbarian  ruler  the  value  of 
centralization  and  absolutism.  The  importance  of  this 
influence  has  been  disputed  by  some  scholars,  but  impar- 
tial investigation  leaves  no  doubt  that  there  was  a  strong 
tendency  to  increase  the  power  of  the  king  at  the  expense 
of  the  people  due  to  the  Roman  example.  In  the  second 
place,  the  influence  of  the  conquest  itself  w,as  in  the  same 
direction.  It  exposed  the  tribe  to  greater  dangers  than 
it  had  ever  before  experienced,  it  planted  it  in  the  midst 
of  a  conquered  population  more  numerous  than  itself,  it 
demanded  that  the  whole  power  of  the  state  should  be 
wielded  by  a  single  will  and  to  a  single  purpose.  The 
tendency-  of  dangerous  crises  in  the  life  even  of  the  freest 
nation  is  toward  centralization.  This  result  is  seen 
everywhere  in  these  new  states,  with  especial  clearness  in 
the  case  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  where  the  first-mentioned 
cause  —  the  Roman  example — had  no  opportunity  to 
work.  The  fact  must  therefore  be  distinctly  recognized 
that  the  first  development  which  these  German  institu- 
tions underwent  was  away  from  liberty  and  toward  ab- 
solutism. 

Of  these  original  institutions  three  are  of  especial  im- 
portance and  interest  in  their  bearing  upon  later  times, 
and  these  are  selected  for  specific  notice. 

First,  the  public  assemblies.  The  early  Germans  had 
assemblies  of  two  grades.  The  highest  in  grade  was  the 
assembly-  of  all  the  freemen  of  the  tribe,  which  we  may 
call  the  tribal  or  national  assembl3\     This  possessed  dis- 


WHAT  THE   GEEMANS   ADDED  95 

tinct  legislative  rights,  like  a  market  democracy,  at  least 
so  much  as  a  right  of  decision  for  or  against  important 
measiu-es  submitted  to  it  by  a  smaller  council  of  elders 
or  chiefs.  In  it  were  elected  the  kings  and  the  chiefs  of 
the  smaller  districts,  and  it  also  acted  on  occasion  as  a 
supreme  judicial  tribunal  for  the  hearing  anel  decision  of 
such  cases  as  might  be  brought  before  it.  It  would  seem 
as  if  this  assembly  would  furnish  a  most  promising  be- 
ginning, which  ought  to  grow  into  a  free  and  national 
system  of  legislation.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  did  not. 
The  national  assembly  was  one  of  the  earliest  victims  of 
the  centralizing  tendency,  and  everywhere  sank  into  a 
mere  form  or  entirely  disappeared.  This  was  as  true  of 
England  as  of  any  continental  state,  and  though  it  is 
possible  that  the  smaller  assembly  of  chiefs,  the  concilium 
'principuiii,  which  accompanied  the  national  assembly,  re- 
mained through  the  successive  changes  of  government 
until  it  gi-ew  into  the  House  of  Lords,  even  this  is  not 
perfectly  certain.  It  is,  however,  for  our  present  purpose, 
a  matter  of  no  importance  whether  it  did  or  not,  for, 
whatever  its  origin,  the  assembly  of  notables  under  the 
Norman  and  early  Angevin  kings  was  no  longer  in  any 
sense  a  public  assembly,  nor  did  it  have  in  any  true  sense 
a  representative  character  or  any  legislative  power. 

To  find  the  real  origin  of  the  modern  representative 
system  we  must  tm'n  to  the  assemblies  of  the  second 
grade  in  the  early  German  states.  In  these  the  freemen 
of  the  smaller  locality  —  the  Hundred  or  Canton  —  came 
togetljer  in  a  public  meeting  which  possessed  no  doubt 
legislative  power  over  matters  purely  local,  but  Avhose 
most  important  function  seems  to  have  been  judicial — a 
local  court,  presided  over  by  a  chief  who  suggested  and 
announced  the  verdict,  which,  however,  derived  its  valid- 
ity from  the  decision  of  the  assembly,  or,  in  later  times, 
of  a  number  of  their  body  appointed  to  act  for  the  whole. 


96  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

These  local  courts,  probably,  as  lias  been  suggested,'  be- 
cause of  the  comparatively  restricted  character  of  the 
powers  which  they  possessed,  were  destined  to  a  long 
life.  On  the  continent  they  lasted  until  the  very  end  of 
the  middle  ages,  when  they  were  generally  overthrown  by 
the  introduction  of  the  Roman  law,  too  highly  scientific 
for  their  simple  methods.  In  England  they  lasted  until 
they  furnished  the  model,  and  probably  the  suggestion, 
for  a  far  more  important  institution — the  House  of  Com- 
mons. How  many  grades  of  these  local  courts  there  were 
on  the  continent  below  the  national  assembly  is  a  matter 
of  dispute.  In  England  there  was  clearly  a  series  of 
three.  The  lowest  was  the  township  assembly,  concerned 
only  with  matters  of  very  slight  importance  and  surviv- 
ing still  in  the  English  vestry  meeting  and  the  New 
England  town-meeting.^  Above  this  was  the  hundi'ed's 
court  formed  ujDon  a  distinctly  representative  princi- 
ple, the  assembly  being  composed,  together  with  certain 
other  men,  of  four  representatives  sent  from  each  town- 
ship. Then,  third,  the  tribal  assembly  of  the  original 
little  settlement,  or,  the  small  kingdom  of  the  early  con- 
quest, seems  to  have  survived  when  this  kingdom  was 

'  Stubbs:   Constitutional  History  of  England,  Vol.  I.,  p.  92. 

^  There  may  be  a  question  as  to  how  strongly  this  connection  be- 
tween the  New  England  town-meeting  and  the  local  assembly  of  the 
primitive  Germans  should  be  asserted,  because  of  the  lack  of  direct 
evidence  for  some  of  the  intermediate  links.  But  while  this  want  of 
evidence,  in  exact  documentary  shape,  mxist  be  admitted,  it  is  certainly 
hypercritieism  to  refuse,  in  consequence,  to  admit  the  overwhelming 
probability  of  such  a  connection.  The  arguments  of  M.  Fustel  de  Cou- 
langes — in  L'AUeu  et  le  Domaine  rural — and  of  M.  Flach — in  Vol.  II. 
of  Les  Origines  de  VAncie7me  France  (though  differing  widely  on.  points 
of  detail  they  tend  to  the  same  result  so  far  as  the  present  point  is  con- 
cerned)— regarding  the  permanence  of  the  Roman  villa,  or  of  the  Ro- 
man village  organization  in  relation  to  medieval  local  self-government 
in  France,  do  not  seem  to  me  to  demand,  in  their  present  state  at  least, 
any  modification  of  the  statements  here  made. 


WHAT   THE   GERMAXS    ADDED  97 

swallowed  up  in  a  larger  one,  and  to  liave  originated  a 
new  grade  in  the  hierarchy  of  assemblies,  the  county  as- 
sembly or  shire  court.  At  any  rate,  whatever  may  have 
been  its  origin,  and  whatever  may  be  the  final  decision 
of  the  \igorously  disputed  question,  whether  in  the 
Frankish  state  there  w^ere  any  assemblies  or  courts  for 
the  counties  distinct  from  the  courts  of  the  hundreds,  it 
is  certain  that  courts  of  this  grade  came  into  existence  in 
England  and  were  of  the  utmost  importance  there.  In 
them,  too,  the  representative  principle  was  distinctly  ex- 
pressed, eacli  township  of  the  shire  being  represented,  as 
in  the  hundi'ed's  court,  by  foiu'  chosen  representatives. 
These  courts,  also,  pass  essentially  unchanged  through 
the  English  feudal  and  absolutest  period,  maintaining 
local  self-government  and  preserving  more  of  the  primi- 
tive freedom  than  survived  elsewhere.  We  shall  see 
more  in  detail,  at  a  later  point,  how  the  representative 
principle  originating  in  them  is  transferred  to  the  na- 
tional legislature,  creating  our  modern  national  repre- 
sentative system — the  most  important  single  contribution 
to  the  machinery  of  government  made  in  historic  times, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  federal  government. 

The  first  of  the  special  political  elements  brought  in 
by  the  Germans  is,  then,  the  public  assembly,  the  orig- 
inal germ  of  our  modern  free  legislatures  ;  but  this  germ 
is  to  be  found  in  their  local,  not  in  their  national  assem- 
blies. 

The  second  one  of  these  special  elements  to  be 
noticed  is  the  elective  monarchy.  The  freemen  of  all 
the  early  German  tribes  clearly  joossessed  the  right  of 
electing  their  king.  In  all  these  tribes,  however,  the 
tendency  was  just  as  clearly  toward  the  establishment 
of  hereditary  succession.  It  depended  entirely  upon  the 
special  circumstances  of  Gach  case  whether  the  forms  of 
an  election,  preserved  everywhere  for  a  considerable 
7 


98  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

time,  sank  into  mere  forms  without  meaning,  and  finally 
out  of  sight,  or  whether  they  retained  life  and  meaning 
and  became  recognized  as  constitutional. 

In  Germany  an  accidental  cii'cumstance — the  fact  that 
no  dynasty  lasted  for  more  than  three  or  four  genera- 
tions— kept  alive  the  principle  of  election  until  it  re- 
sulted in  a  real  elective  monarchy ;  but,  o\\dng  to  another 
circumstance — the  loss  on  the  part  of  the  royal  power  it- 
self of  all  control  over  the  state — this  fact  had  no  valu- 
able results  for  liberty.     In  France  an  accidental  circum- 
stance again — the  fact  that  for  more  than  three  hundred 
years  after  the  election  of  the  Caj)etian  family  to  the 
throne,  it  never  lacked  a  direct  male  heir,  had  the  op- 
posite result,  and  the  principle  of  election  passed  en- 
tirely out  of   sight  and  the   monarchy  became  strictly 
hereditary.     In  England  the  monarchy  also  became,  in 
time,  strictly  hereditary.     But  there,  before  the  princi- 
ple of  election  had  passed  entu-ely  out  of  the  public 
consciousness,  a   series  of  depositions  and  of  disputed 
successions  revived  it,  or  what  is  far  more  important,  its 
corollary,  the  right  of  the  people  to  depose  an  unsatis- 
factory king  and  put  another  in  his  place.     This   idea 
seems  to  have  been  recognized  by  some  at  least  in  the 
contest  for  the   crown   between  Stephen  and  Matilda, 
toward  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century ;  far  less  con- 
sciously in  the  deposition  of  Edward  II.  in  1327  ;  more 
clearly  in  the  case  of   Richard  II.  in  1399,  and  at  the 
end  of   the  Yorkist  line   in   1485,  in  both  these  cases 
the  rightful  heirs  being  set  aside  in  favor  of  others.     It 
came  to  the  fullest  consciousness  and  the  clearest  ex- 
pression in  the  Eevolution  of  1688,  and  in  the  accession 
of  the  House  of  Hanover  in  1715.     These  cases  estab- 
lished definitely  the  principle  that  the  sovereign  obtains 
his  right  to  rule  from  the  consent  of  the  people  ;  that  the 
title  to  the  throne  is  elective — a  principle  which  has  been 


WHAT  THE  GERMANS  ADDED  99 

distinctly  recognized  by  the  princes  of  the  House  of 
Hanover.  It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  this  is  a  vitally 
important  principle  if  a  monarchy  is  to  be  transformed 
into  what  is  virtually  a  republican  government.  AYith- 
out  the  clear  recognition  of  this  principle,  explicitly  or 
implicitly,  by  the  reigning  sovereign,  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  continue  a  historic  line  of  kings  at  the  head 
of  a  republic,  the  object  which  is  sought,  and  more  or 
less  completely  secui'ed,  by  all  modern  constitutional 
monarchies.' 

In  this  case,  again,  the  second  of  the  original  elements 
of  free  government  among  the  Germans — the  elective 
monarchy — was  developed  into  a  fundamental  principle 
of  modem  constitutions  by  the  Anglo-Saxons. 

The  third  element  of  free  government  originating  with 
the  Germans  was  an  independent  or  self-developing  sys- 

'  That  this  principle  has  no  immediate  bearing  on  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  is  evident.  But  if  we  turn  back  to  1776  it  may  be 
clearly  seen  that  it  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  important  princi- 
ples which  justified  the  Revolution.  The  Declaration  of  Independence, 
after  enumerating  the  acts  of  tyranny  on  the  part  of  the  king,  says  : 
' '  A  Prince  whose  character  is  thus  marked  by  every  act  which  may  de- 
fine a  Tyrant,  is  unfit  to  be  the  ruler  of  a  free  People."  This  sentence 
states  explicitly  the  fact  that  a  free  people  may  have  a  king,  and  with 
equal  clearnpss  the  principle  that  if  he  is  unfit  he  may  be  set  aside.  It 
is  worthy  of  notice  that,  in  that  part  of  the  Declaration  which  is  really 
Anglo-Saxou  in  origin  and  spirit,  this  is  the  only  statement  made  of  any 
principle  which  justifies  the  Revolution,  the  body  of  the  Declaration 
consists  of  evidence  to  prove  the  unfitness  asserted. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  this  special  Anglo-Saxon  jn'i^ciple  is  only  a 
form  of  the  broader  right  of  revolution.  The  historical  line  sketched 
above  merely  represents  the  channel  through  which  the  race  has  been 
brought  to  a  practical  consciousness  of  the  broader  principle.  Its 
peculiar  historical  significance,  however,  does  not  lie  in  that  fact,  since 
the  race  must  inevitably  have  become  conscious,  as  all  races  have,  of 
the  right  of  revolution.  It  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  has  led  to  the  forma- 
tion of  a  constitutional  theory  in  monarchical  states,  whicli  if  cordially 
accepted  by  the  sovereign,  tends  to  do  away  with  the  necessity  of  revo- 
lutiou. 


100  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tern  of  law.  The  law  systems  of  all  the  Germans  at  the 
time  of  the  invasion  were  very  crude  both  in  the  law  it- 
self and  in  the  method  of  its  enforcement,  but  they  were 
all  characterized  alike  by  this  fact,  that  the  law  was  as- 
certained,''defined,  and  declared  by  the  coui-ts,  or,  in 
other  words,  since  the  courts  were  public  assemblies,  by 
the  people  themselves.  It  follows  necessarily  from  this 
that  the  courts,  by  establishing  precedents,  by  declaring 
customs  which  had  grown  up  in  the  community  to  have 
the  force  of  law,  and  by  applying  the  common  judgment 
and  sense  of  justice  of  the  people  to  new  cases,  as  they 
arose,  were  constantly  enlarging  the  body  of  the  law,  and 
building  up  by  a  natural  process  of  growth  a  great  body 
of  customary  or  common  law — unwTitten  law.  The  im- 
portance of  this  practice  as  an  element  of  liberty  does  not 
consist  in  the  law  itself  which  is  created  in  this  way. 
That  is  apt  to  be  unscientific  and  exj)erimental.  It  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  the  law  is  not  imposed  upon  the 
people  by  a  power  outside  itself,  and  declared  and  en- 
forced by  a  series  of  irresponsible  agents,  but  that  the 
people  themselves  make  it  and  also  interpret,  modify, 
and  enforce  it.  This  practice  continued  in  vigorous  life 
in  the  continental  states  much  longer  than  any  other  of 
the  specific  institutions  mentioned,  and,  together  with 
the  popular  courts  which  gave  it  expression,  preserved 
some  remains  of  freedom  long  after  it  had  entirely  dis- 
appeared from  every  other  part  of  the  state.  In  the  last 
part  of  the  middle  ages  the  adoption  of  the  Eoman  law, 
and  the  system  of  scientific  jurisprudence  which  that  law 
fostered,  practically  destroyed  on  the  Continent  these 
self -developing  bodies  of  law.'     Wlien  the  control  of  the 

'  The  Roman  law  did  not  everywhere  take  the  place  of  the  customary 
law  as  the  sole  law  of  the  community.  In  many  places  the  customary 
law  remained  as  the  prevailing  local  law.  But  it  ceased  to  grow.  The 
principle  was  generally  admitted  that  in  new  cases  for  which  the  cus- 


WHAT   THE  GERMANS   ADDED  101 

courts  passed  into  the  hands  of  men  trained  to  regard  the 
Roman  law  as  their  only  model,  and  when  the  Eoman- 
law  maxim,  Quod  principl  placuit  legis  habet  vigorem 
was  adopted  by  the  newly  formed  nations,  and  became  a 
native  maxim,  as  in  the  French,  Si  veut  le  roi,  si  veut  la  lot, 
then  the  control  of  the  people  over  the  law  had  ceased, 
and  all  law-making  power  had  been  centred  in  the  sove- 
reign. In  England  this  revolution  never  took  place. 
The  common  law  has  continued  to  develop  by  the  same 
natural  process  through  every  generation  of  its  history, 
and,  however  seriously  at  any  point  the  native  principles 
may  have  been  modified  by  the  introduction  of  foreign 
ideas  and  doctrines  of  law,  such  modification  has  never 
been  of  a  character  to  check  for  a  moment  the  natural 
gro^vth  of  the  common  law,  or  to  deprive  it  of  its  indepen- 
dence of  the  executive  and  legislative  branches  of  gov- 
ernment, which  are  the  vitally  important  points.'  It  is 
at  this  moment,  in  every  quarter  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
world,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  thousand  new  conditions  of 
social  and  geographical  environment,  as  vigorous  and 
creative  a  part  of  the  np-tion's  life  as  ever  in  the  past,  and 

tomary  law  did  not  provide,  recourse  should  be  had  to  the  Roman  law, 
and  the  customary  law  itself  was  reduced  to  written  and  more  scien- 
tific shape  under  the  influence  of  the  lawyers.  Nor  should  it  be  under- 
stood that  the  Germanic  law  made  no  permanent  contributions  to  the 
details  of  the  law  in  those  places  where  it  was  on  the  whole  supplanted 
by  the  Roman  law.  A  specific  history  of  law  would  show  that  tliese 
contributions  were  numerous  and  important  even  in  directions  where 
the  Roman  law  was  very  highly  developed. 

'  That  the  common  law  has  been  radically  revolutionized  by  statute 
on  some  subjects  in  very  recent  times,  as,  for  example,  in  real-estate 
law,  is  not  an  evidence  of  the  decline  of  this  self  developing  power.  It 
is  rather  due  to  the  rapid  and  revolutionary  change  in  society  itself, 
which  demands  equally  rapid  and  revolutionary  change  in  the  law  to 
accompany  it.  The  statutes  themselves  are  subjected  at  once  to  the  or- 
dinary process  of  common-law  development  in  the  interpretation  and 
application  of  them  made  by  the  courts. 


102  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

one  of  the  most  important  processes  of  onr  free  self-gov- 
ernment.' In  the  United  States  the  existence  of  a  writ- 
ten constitution,  as  fundamental  law,  has  led  to  a  most 
important  and  valuable  extension  of  this  principle  in  the 
power  which  tlic  courts  have  assumed,  without  expressed 
sanction,  to  declare  a  law  regularly  passed  by  the  na- 
tional legislatm-e  unconstitutional  and  therefore  null  and 
void.  This  practice, will  also  be  adopted,  almost  of  ne- 
cessity, by  British  coui-ts  in  dealing  with  actS"- passed  by 
an  Irish  Parliament  if  one  should  be  established  by  an 
imperial  statute  limiting  its  legislative  powers. 

These  three  institutions,  though  b}^  no  means  covering 
every  detail  which  might  be  mentioned,  are  the  most 
important  political  elements  brought  into  modern  civili- 
zation by  the  German  race.  The  great  system  of  free 
self-government  which  the  Anglo-Saxons  have  built  upon 
this  foimdation  is  making  the  conquest  of  the  world. 
After  much  experimenting  in  other  directions  under  the 
lead  of  the  French,  all  the  modern  nations  which  have 
adopted  constitutional  government  are  returning  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  model  as  expressed  either  in  England  or 
in  the  United  States,  making  such  modifications  of  type 
as  local  necessities,  or  local  prejudices  not  yet  over- 
come, may  require.      That  the  political  future  of  the 

'  It  is  the  habit  of  German  students  of  law  to  say  hard  things  of  the 
English  common  Law.  They  call  it  confused  and  unscientific  and  full 
of  repetitions  and  contradictory.  And  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
these  things  are  to  some  extent  true.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that  pre- 
cisely the  same  things  could  have  been  said  with  equal  justice  of  the 
Roman  law  during  the  ages  of  its  growth,  and  it  is  well  to  remember 
that,  as  the  Roman  law  took  on  a  more  scientific  form,  and  was  reduced 
to  an  organized  system,  its  life  and  power  of  growth  ceased.  History 
does  not  show  any  necessary  connection  between  these  two  events  ;  but 
certainly,  if  the  formation  of  a  scientific  system  on  the  basis  of  the 
English  common  law  is  to  mean  that  our  law  and  institution-making 
power  is  past,  then  every  Anglo-Saxon  may  most  heartily  pray  that  our 
law  may  long  remain  unscientific. 


WHAT  THE   GERMANS   ADDED  103 

world  belongs   to   Anglo-Saxon   institutions   seems   as- 
sured.' 

One  otlier  specific  institution  of  the  early  Germans 
deserves  a  passing  notice  in  this  chapter  because  of  its 
later  influence.  That  is  the  comitatns — the  band  of 
youilg  warriors  who  were  bound  by  an  especially  strong 
bond  of  fidelity  to  the  service  of  a  chief,  were  maintained 
by  him,  ai^l  followed  him  to  war.  It  was  formerly  sup- 
posed that  this  institution  gave  rise  to  the  feudal  system. 
The  German  chief,  it  was  thought,  taking  the  lands  which 
fell  to  him  in  the  conquest,  divided  them  among  the 
members  of  his  comitatus,  and,  because  they  remained 
under  the  same  bond  of  fidelity  to  him,  as  their  lord, 
after  they  had  received  their  land,  the  feudal  system  was 
created  at  once.  But  great  institutions  like  feudalism 
are  never  struck  out  at  a  single  blow,  and  this  theory 
of  its  origin  was  long  ago  abandoned  by  continental 
scholars  though  living  on  in  English  l)ooks.  We  shall 
find,  later  on,  an  important  influence  which  the  comitatus 
exercised  upon  feudalism  in  some  points  of  detail,  but  it 
is  not  one  of  the  sources  from  which  the  larger  institu- 
tional features  of  the  feudal  system  arose. 

Much  has  also  been  written  upon  the  influence  of  cer- 
tain special  ideas  held  by  the  early  Germans,  such  as 
their  theological  and  ethical  ideas  and  their  high  regard 
for  woman,  much  more  indeed  than  the  facts  will  warrant. 

•  That  one  not  infrequently  hears  among  the  Germans  to-day  most 
vigorous  denial  of  their  great  indebtedness  to  Anglo-Saxon  institutions 
is  one  characteristic  of  the  temporary  phase  of  growth  through  which 
Germany  is  just  now  passing,  and  which  affords  a  most  interesting  study 
to  the  student  of  comparative  politics.  It  is  a  symptom  of  the  same 
sort  as  the  sneer  at  i)arliame7itary  government  wliich  may  occasionally 
be  heard  from  German  university  platforms,  one  among  several  traits, 
so  keenly  noted  by  Lieber  in  the  France  of  the  Second  Empire,  which 
may  now  be  found  with  equal  clearness  in  Germany. 


104  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

That  they  liad  a  liigli  respect  for  woman  as  compared 
with  that  of  the  classic  world  of  their  time  is  nndoiibted, 
but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  higher  than  that  of 
Aryan  races  in  general — the  classical  nations  themselves 
— when  in  the  same  stage  of  civilization,  and  in  general 
it  is  sufficient  to  refer  to  what  has  been  said  on  the  sub- 
ject in  the  chapter  on  the  influence  of  Christianity. 

Of  the  influence  of  their  ethical  notions  and  of  their 
somewhat  lofty  conception  of  God,  the  most  that  can  be 
affirmed  with  any  certainty  is,  that  they  had  ideas  which 
would  make  the  Christian  teachings  seem  not  altogether 
foreign  to  them,  and  which  very  possibly  made  easy  the 
transition  to  Christianity.  Even  such  a  statement  as  this 
is,  however,  an  inference  from  the  apparent  nature  of  the 
case,  rather  than  from  the  recorded  facts,  and  that  these 
ideas  led  them  to  any  more  perfect  understanding .  of 
Christianity,  or  to  any  more  sympathetic  development  of 
it,  than  would  have  been  the  case  mthout  them,  is  a 
theory  without  historical  support. 

The  coming  in  of  the  Germans  brought  face  to  face  the 
four  chief  elements  of  our  civilization :  the  Greek  with  its 
art  and  science,  much  of  it  for  the  time  forgotten ;  the 
Koman  with  its  political  institutions  and  legal  ideas,  and 
furnishing  the  empire  as  the  common  ground  upon  which 
all  stood;  the  Christian  with  its  religious  and  moral 
ideas ;  and  the  German  with  other  political  and  legal 
ideas,  and  Avith  a  reinforcement  of  fresh  blood  and  life. 
By  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  these  all  existed  side  by 
side  in  the  nominal  Roman  empire.  It  was  the  work  of 
the  remaining  centuries  of  the  middle  ages  to  unite  them 
into  a  single  organic  whole — the  groundwork  of  modern 
civilization. 

But  the  introduction  of  the  last  element,  the  Germans, 
was  a  conquest — a  conquest  rendered  possible  by  the  ina- 


WHAT   THE   GERMANS   ADDED  105 

bility  of  the  old  civilization  any  longer  to  defend  itself 
against  their  attack.  It  is  one  of  the  miracles  of  history 
that  such  a  conquest  should  have  occurred,  the  violent 
occupation  of  the  empire  by  the  invasion  of  an  inferior 
race,  with  so  little  destruction  of  civilization,  with  so 
complete  an  absorption,  in  the  end,  of  the  conqueror  by 
the  conquered.  It  must  'be  possible  to  point  out  some 
reasons  why  the  conquest  of  the  ancient  world  by  the 
Germans  was  so  little  what  was  to  be  expected. 

In  a  single  word,  the  reason  is  to  be  found  in  the  im- 
pression which  the  world  they  had  conquered  made  upon 
the  Germans.  They  conquered  it,  and  they  treated  it  as 
a  conquered  world.  They  destroyed  and  plundered  what 
they  pleased,  and  it  was  not  a  little.  They  took  posses- 
sion of  the  land  and  they  set  up  their  own  tribal  govern- 
ments in  place  of  the  Roman.  And  yet  they  recognized, 
in  a  way,  even  the  worst  (^^Jiem,  their  inferiority  to  the 
people  they  had  overcori^^^Bhey  found  upon  every  side 
of  them  evidences  of  a^BBaand  over  nature  such  as 
they  had  never  acquired :  cities,  buildings,  roads,  bridges, 
and  ships  ;  wealth  and  art,  skill  in  mechanics  and  skill  in 
government,  the  like  of  which  they  had  never  known ; 
ideas  firmly  held  that  the  Roman  system  of  things  was 
divinely  ordained  and  eternal ;  a  church  strongly  organ- 
ized and  with  an  imposing  ceremonial,  officered  by  vener- 
able and  saintly  men,  and  speaking  with  an  overj)ower- 
ing  positiveness  and  an  awful  authority  that  did  not  yield 
before  the  strongest  barbarian  king.  The  impression 
which  these  things  made  upon  the  mind  of  the  German 
must  have  been  profound.  In  no  other  Avay  can  the 
result  be  accounted  for.  Their  conquest  w-as  a  physical 
conquest,  and  as  a  physical  conquest  it  was  complete,  but 
it  scarcely  went  farther.  In  government  and  law  there 
was  little  change  for  the  Roman  ;  in  religion  and  language, 
none  at  all.     Other  things,  schools  and  commercial  ar- 


106  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

rangements  for  instance,  the  Germans  would  have  been 
glad  to  maintain  at  the  Roman  level  if  they  had  known 
how.  Half  unconsciously  they  adopted  the  belief  in  the 
divinely  founded  and  eternal  empire,  and  in  a  vague  way 
recognized  its  continuance  after  they  had  overthrown  it. 
As  time  went  on,  and  they  identified  themselves  more 
closely  still  with  the  people,  ideas,  and  institutions  of  the 
old  civilization,  their  belief  in  the  permanence  of  the 
empire  became  more  clear,  and  fm-nished  the  foundation 
for  the  Roman  empire  of  Charlemagne,  and  for  the  Holy 
Roman  empire  to  which  that  led,  a  strong  influence  for 
unity  in  the  most  chaotic  portion  of  medieval  history. 

If  from  one  point  of  view,  it  seems  strange  that  so 
much  that  was  Roman  remained,  looked  at  from  the  side 
of  the  suj^eriority  of  the  ancient  civilization  and  the  evi- 
dent impressiAi  which  it  made  upon  the  Germans,  it  seems 
strange,  in  turn,  that  so  niu^that  was  German  survived. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  fun^^H^tal  facts  of  the  history  of 
civilization  that  this  was  If^l^n  upon  fairly  equal  terms 
of  German  and  Roman  to  form  a  new  whole  and  to  begin 
a  new  progress. 

Having  uoav  brought  together  all  the  chief  elements  of 
medieval  history,  we  have  next  to  take  up  the  first  great 
movement  which  properly  belongs  to  that  history  itself — • 
the  transformation  of  the  primitive  Christian  organiza- 
tion into  a  monarchical  church. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   FOEMATION   OF  THE   PAPACY 

The  centuries  whose  outline  we  liave  been  studying 
were  dark  and  despairing  centuries  for  the  patriotic 
Roman.  It  seemed  as  if  the  world  was  falling  to  ruin 
around  him.  Calamity  followed  calamity  in  quick  suc- 
cession. Pestilence,  famine,  earthquake,  rebellion,  and 
invasion  trod  one  upon  the  heels  of  the  other  without 
cessation.  The  world  was  coming  to  an  end.  He  could 
not  see  as  we  can  now  see  that  the  foundations  were  being 
laid  for  new  states  greater  than  his  own,  and  that  the  life- 
giving  elements  of  a  new  and  higher  civilization  were 
being  added  to  the  old.  He  could  see  only  what  was 
manifestly  true  that  the  greatest  political  power  of  history 
was  passing  away. 

But  not  all  the  ancient  society  shared  this  feeling  of 
despair.  A  considerable  body  of  Roman  citizens  looked 
to  the  future  with  hope  and  had  no  fear  that  all  that  men 
had  gained  would  be  lost,  and  they,  as  well  as  the  Ger- 
mans, were  laying  new  foundations,  broad  and  strong,  for 
the  future  to  build  upon.  We  have  examined  the  early 
history  of  the  Christian  church,  its  slight  beginning,  its 
conflict  with  paganism,  and  its  final  victory,  and  the  new 
ideas  which  it  introduced.  But  the  history  of  the  early 
church  as  a  religion  is  only  a  small  part  of  its  history. 
Upon  the  foundation  offered  by  the  simple  and  scarcely 
organized  society  of  the  pentecostal  days  was  gradually 


108  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

constructed,  by  tlie  operation  of  causes  far  different  from 
any  contained  in  the  foiu'  gospels,  the  most  permanent 
and  most  powerful  organization  of  history — the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  ,  During  all  the  dark  days  of  the  Ger- 
man settlement  aind  of  the  confused  political  conditions 
which  followed,  it  was  the  most  effective  preservative  and 
assimilative  force  at  work,  and  while  all  the  other  great 
creations  of  the  middle  ages — the  Holy  Roman  empire 
and  the  feudal  system — have  passed  away  leaving  only 
shadowy  remains  behind  them,  it  has  continued  do\\Ta 
into  our  own  times,  a  world-embracing  power  of  great 
and  living  influence,  notwithstanding  the  loss  of  much  to 
which  it  once  laid  claim.  It  is  then  a  matter  of  the  ut- 
most importance  in  the  history  of  civilization  to  trace  the 
steps  by  which  the  primitive  chiu'ch,  as  the  New  Testa- 
ment describes  it,  was  transformed  into  this  vast  and 
highly  perfected  "  work  of  human  policy,"  as  Macaulay 
justly  called  it. 

Into  the  question  of  the  origin  of  the  episcopate,  be- 
longing to  the  history  of  the  primitive  church,  I  shall  not 
go.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  however  simply  and  loosely 
organized  the  primitive  church  may  have  been,  by  the 
time  of  the  conversion  of  Constantine  the  principal  causes 
were  already  at  work  which  transformed  it  into  a  hierar- 
chical organization,  and  their  results  were  already  plainly 
manifest  in  the  growing  separation  of  clergy  from  laity 
as  a  different  body  with  distinct  rights  and  privileges, 
and  divided  within  itself  into  various  grades  of  rank  and 
power.  It  will  be  the  work  of  this  chapter  to  trace  the 
further  operation  of  these  and  other  causes  which  trans- 
formed this  organization  of  the  early  fourth  century,  more 
aristocratic  than  monarchical  in  character  at  that  point, 
into  the  theocratic  absolutism  of  later  times.  The  pro- 
cess was  not  complete  in  the  period  which  falls  within  the 
chapter,  but  it  was  so  fully  under  way  that  only  some  re- 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY        109 

voliitionaiy  cliange  of  direction  in  the  currents  of  history 
could  have  prevented  its  accomplishment. 

As,  according  to  the  most  probable  view,  one  of  the 
clergy  of  a  city  had  been  able  to  create  a  power  over  the 
others,  and  give  rise  to  the  office  of  bishop,  in  its  later 
meaning,  so  it  was  natural  that  the  next  step  in  logical 
order  should  be  taken,  and  the  bishop  of  the  most  im- 
portant or  capital  city  of  a  pro\ance  should  extend  his 
power  over  the  other  bishops  of  the  province  and  create 
the  office  of  archbishop^  One  more  step,  equally  logical, 
remained  to  be  taken  when  the  bishop  of  the  greatest  city 
of  a  large  region — Alexandria  or  Antioch — or  of  the  capi- 
tal city  of  the  empire,  should  create  a  power  over  arch- 
bishops and  bishops  alike,  and  found  an  ecclesiastical 
monarchy. 

This  indicates,  however,  only  a  general  tendency.  It 
tells  us  nothing  of  the  causes  which  enabled  the  form- 
ing constitution  actually  to  take  the  direction  which  this 
tendency  pointed  out.  Had  not  the  circumstances  of 
the  time  favored  growth  along  this  line,  these  beginnings, 
however  promising  and  apparently  natural,  could  have 
led  to  no  result.  It  is,  then,  to  the  favoring  circum- 
stances, all  seeming  to  conspire  together  to  cherish  this 
natural  tendency,  to  the  conditions  in  which  this  grow- 
ing church  constitution  was  jilaced,  that  we  must  turn  to 
ascertain  the  real  causes  of  the  monarchical  government 
which  resulted. 

In  beginning  a  study  of  these  causes  it  is  necessary, 
before  all  else,  to  fix  clearly  in  mind  the  fact  that  the 
Christian  religion  was  not  one  of  them.  There  is  no 
one  form  of  government  or  organization  to  which,  as  a 
religion,  it  directly  leads. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  thing  most  vitally  important,  hero  and 
throughout  the  whole  course  of  history,  that  the  chm-ch 


110  MEDIEVAL  X^LVILIZATIOlSr 

sliould  be  distinguished  from  Christianity.  Connected 
with  the  history  of  this  religion'there  are  three  totally 
distinct  things;  each  finding  its  beginning,  its  opportunity 
to  grow,  in  the 'earliest  Christianity,  but  each  caused  by  a 
totally  different  set  "of  causes  iind  having  an  almost  wholly 
independent  life,  a  life  at  any  rate  in  ho  way  necessarily 
controlled  by  that  of  either  of  the  others. 

One  of  these  is  Christianity  considered  as  a  religion 
simply ;  that  personal  faith  in,  and  love  for,  a  divine 
Saviour  and  a  divine  Father  by  him  revealed  which  brings 
the  individual  into  conscious  unity  with  God,  and '  be- 
comes for  him  an  unequalled  help  in  right  living ;  that 
personal  faith  which  exists  apparently  with  equal  per- 
fection and  equally  complete  results  under  every  eccle- 
siastical system  and  in  connection  with  every  form  of 
dogmatic  belief.  That  such  a  power  exists  and  that  such 
results  follow  from  these  causes,  is  manifest  from  an 
overwhelming  abundance  of  evidence  to  any  student  of 
historical  details,  whatever  bitter  hatred  or  murderous 
cruelty  may  have  grown  out  of  theological  differences, 
or  whatever  lying  trickery  out  of  ecclesiastical  strife. 

The  second  of  these  is  the  church  as  an  organization, 
an  ecclesiastical  system,  a  governmental  or  political  in- 
stitution. Based  upon  a  body  of  people  who  profess  the 
Christian  religion,  it  is  nevei'theless  an  outgrowth  of  their 
political,  legal,  organizing  instincts,  and  not  out  of  any- 
thing whatever  connected  with  the  religion  as  a  religion. 
It  would  seem  as  if  this  must  be  entirely  clear  to  any 
one  who  remembers  how  perfectly  the  same  religious  life 
has  shown  itself,  the  same  religious  results  have  been 
achieved,  under  the  most  widely  varying  forms  of  organ- 
ization possible  to  thought.  Xavier  and  AVesley  and 
Woolman,  whatever  faults  of  character  or  of  tempera- 
ment remained  vinsubdued,  are  all  alike  instances  of  the 
transforming  and  inspiring  power  of  the  same  single  force. 


THE  FORMATION   OF   THE   PAPACY  111 

The  third  is  the  dogmatic  system,  the  body  of  theo- 
logical beliefs  of  a  given  age  or  people.  Based  again 
on  the  primary  facts  of  the  Christian  religion,  it  is  not 
created  or  rendered  necessary  in  the  least  by  anything 
connected  with  that  religion  as  religion  merely,  but  is 
an.  outgrowth  wholly  of  the  scientific  instinct,  of  the 
noitural  and  inevitable  attempt  of  the  mind  to  explain 
these  primary  facts,  and  to  construct  the  explanations 
made  into  a  reasonable  and  logical  system.  These  ex- 
planatory theories  differ  very  widely  from  one  another,  as 
it  is  necessary  that  they  should,  since  they  are  formed 
under  varying  philosophical  preconcejDtions,  and  the 
varying  conditions  of  different  ages  and  different  races, 
but  these  differences  of  scientific  sj^stem  do  not  in  the 
slightest  degree  imply  any  difference  in  the  primary  facts 
and  experiences  whose  explanation  is  attempted.  It  is 
an  incontestable  fact  that  many  a  bloody  civil  war  has 
been  fought  between  Christian  sects  who  did  not  differ 
fi'om  one  another  upon  any  essential  religious  truth  what- 
ever. In  the  weakness  of  their  not  yet  wholly  civilized  or 
Christianized  human  nature  their  varying  explanations 
seemed  to  them  as  vitally  important  as  the  fundamental 
fact  itself  which  they  were  attempting  to  explain,  and  so 
they  burned  and  tortured  to  save  men's  soiJs. 

These  dogmatic  systems  and  these  ecclesiastical  sys- 
tems both  grow  out  of  necessities  of  human  nature.  The 
mind  must  seek  some  philosophical  explanation  for  fam- 
iliar facts,  and  a  group  of  peojDle  influenced  by  the  same 
desires  and  motives,  must  take  upon  themselves  that  form 
of  organization  which  seems  to  them  the  most  natural. 
But  neither  the  dogmatic  system,  nor  the  ecclesiastical 
system,  of  any  given  time  or  place,  is  Christianity.  The 
causes  which  have  created  the  one  are  not  those  which 
have  created  the  other,  and  the  one  set  of  causes  must 
not  be  held  responsible  for  results  which  have  followed 


112  MEDIEVAL   CiVILIZATIOTT 

from  the  other.  So  completely  indispensable  is  this  dis^ 
tinction  that  absolutely  no  trustworthy  reasoning  about 
Christian  history  is  possible  if  it  is  lost  sight  of  ;  causes 
and  effects  become  inextricably  confused,  and  wholly  un- 
necessary blundering  and  bitter  controversy  has  often 
been  the  result.       ♦ 

These  truths  may  be  said  to  be  commonplaces  of  the 
best  religious  thinking  of  to-day,  but  they  have  been  so 
constantly  disregarded  in  historical  study  and  writing 
that  they  ought  to  be  emphasized  even  at  the  expense  of 
repetition.    ' 

Of  the  direct  causes  which  did  further  the  tendency  al- 
ready begun  in  the  church  toward  a  monarchical  constitu- 
tion, the  most  potent  and  effective  may  be  brought  under 
two  heads — the  change  which  took  place  in  the  popular 
understanding  of  Christianity  itself,  and  the  influence  of 
Rome. 

For  the  first  two  centuries  Christianity  had  continued 
to  be,  comparatively  speaking,  the  simple  and  spiritual 
religion  of  its  primitive  days.  Two  very  serious  at- 
tempts had  been  made  to  change  its  character,  but  with- 
out success.  One  of  these  had  been  an  attempt  to  unite 
the  old  Jewish  system  with  it,  and  if  not  to  compel  the 
Gentile  Christian  to  become  almost  a  Jew,  at  least  to 
compel  Christianity  to  adopt  some  of  the  characteristic 
forms  and  ideas  of  Judaism.  We  can  discern  evidences 
of  this  struggle  between  the  new  and  the  old  in  the  New 
Testament.  The  other  was  an  attempt  to  engraft  upon 
Christianity  certain  speculations  of  Oriental  philosophy 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  supernatural  and  the  order 
of  the  universe.  This  gave  rise  to  the  heresy  known  as 
Gnosticism  and  to  a  long  and  severe  contest,  ending,  as 
the  earlier  strife  had  done,  in  the  preservation  in  all  es- 
sential points  of  the  primitive  Christianity. 


THE   FORMATION    OF   THE   PAPACY  113 

In  the  meantime  tliere  was  developing,  from  the  very 
slight  beginnings  of  the  early  clays,  a  theological  system 
and  a  ritual.  In  both  these  directions  these  first  tAvo  at- 
tempts to  change  the  character  of  Christianity  had  had 
a  very  great  influence.  Every  heresy  which  was  strong 
enough  to  offer  battle  had  a  decided  effect  upon  the 
growth  of  theology  by  compelling  greater  definiteness  of 
belief  and  clearness  of  statement. 

Much  the  most  powerful  force,  however,  in  transform- 
ing the  slender  theological  stock  of  the  primitive  docu- 
ments into  a  vast  and  complex  dogmatic  system  was  the 
Greek  philosophy.  The  speculative  instinct  of  the  Greek 
would  not  allow  him  to  rest  in  the  few  simple  facts  which 
Christianity  taught.  The  questions  which  those  facts 
raise  ih  every  thinking  mind,  he  must  attempt  to  solve, 
and  in  doing  so  it  is  his  philosophizing  genius  and  his 
already  formed  philosophy  which  he  calls  to  his  aid.  By 
the  time  of  the  conversion  of  Constantine  this  theological 
system  had  assumed  large  proportions,  and  some  of  its 
most  recondite  problems  were  already  under  discussion. 

But  notwithstanding  all  these  attacks  upon  it,  and  ad- 
ditions to  it  from  outside  sources,  the  Christian  religion 
had  remained  until  toward  the  middle  of  the  third  cen- 
tury essentially  unchanged.  Men  came  into  it  because  it 
ansAvered  their  religious  needs,  and  at  some  cost  to  them- 
selves of  difficult}'  and  danger,  and  its  power  over  them 
was  that  of  a  spiritual  faith. 

But  when  the  Christian  chm'ch  began  to  grow  rapidly, 
and  its  social  standing  to  improve,  and  when  priests  and 
bishops  began  to  hold  positions  of  influence  and  power 
and  to  manage  considerable  financial  interests,  then  men 
began  to  come  into  it  from  other  motives  than  convic- 
tion—because it  was  fashionable,  or  because  its  offices 
were  attractive  to  the  ambitious.  When  Christianity  be- 
came the  religion  of  the  court  and  of  the  state  this  ten- 
8 


114  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

dency  was  greatly  increased.  Masses  of  men  passed  in 
name  over  into  Christianity  with  no  understanding  of 
what  it  was,  bringing  with  them  the  crude  religious  con- 
ceptions and  practices  of  paganism,  unable  to  understand 
the  spiritual  truths  of  Christianity  and  with  no  share  in 
the  inner  spiritual  life  of  the  Christian. 

The  result  could  easily  be  predicted.  No  system — re- 
ligious, political,  or  philosophical — could  survive  the  in- 
vasion of  so  much  alien  material  not  in  harmony  with  its 
fundamental  teachings  without  serious  loss.  It  was  un- 
avoidable that  Christianity  should  decline  toward  the 
pagan  level.  It  is  not  easy  under  any  circumstances  to 
keep  alive  a  keen  perception  of  higher  sj)iritual  truths 
in  the  mass  of  mankind.  In  such  circumstances  as  these 
it  was  entirely  imjjossible,  and  though  jDerhaps  never 
lost  sight  of  by  the  better  spirits,  these  truths  gradually 
passed  out  of  the  popular  religious  consciousness,  and 
their  place  was  taken  by  something  easier  to  understand, 
and  answering  to  a  lower  religious  need. 

The  clearest  illustration,  probably,  of  this  paganizing 
process  is  the  introduction  of  the  worship  of  saints. 
The  pagan,  trained  in  polytheistic  notions,  having  a  sep- 
arate divinity  for  every  interest  of  life,  found  the  Chris- 
tian monotheistic  idea  hard  to  understand.  The  one 
only  God  seemed  to  him  far  off  and  cold,  hard  to  reach 
with  the  prayers  of  a  mere  man.  He  felt  the  necessity  of 
putting  in  between  himself  and  God  the  nearer  and  more 
human  subordinate  divinities  who  had  been  made  famil- 
iar to  him  by  his  earlier  religion,  and  who  seemed  to  him 
easier  of  access.  And  so  he  created  a  Christian  polythe- 
ism, partly  by  putting  some  holy  man  of  the  past  in  the 
place  of  the"  pagan  divinity,  assigning  to  him  the  special 
guardianship  of  the  same  interest  or  locality,  sometimes, 
as  we  can  now  see,  actually  translating  the  pagan  divin- 
ity himself  into  a  Christian  saint. 


THE   FORMATION   OF  THE   PAPACY  115 

This  process  was  uo  doubt  aided  by  tlie  general  l)ar- 
barization  of  the  Roman  society  which  was  going  on  at 
the  same  time,  and  which  shows  itself  in  language  and 
art  and  military  tactics,  and  in  almost  every  direction  ; 
but  it  affected  Christianity  chiefly  through  the  mass  of 
really,  unchristiauized  material  which  entered  the  chiu'ch. 
The  resulting  product  had  undoubtedly  an  immensely 
elevating  and  puiifying  effect  on  the  paganism  of  the 
empire.  The  truths  taught  through  it,  and  held  in  mind 
by  means  of  it,  were  higher  and  better  than  anything  in 
the  old  system.  It  furnished,  very  possibly,  the  only 
practicable  road  by  which  the  mass  of  the  people  could 
pass  to  an  understanding  of  the  more  perfect  ideas  which 
they  needed  to  learn,  and  the  Catholic  church  has  not 
been  without  a  plausible  defence  for  very  similar  prac- 
tices, adopted  more  consciously  and  at  a  later  date,  in 
the  conversion  of  pagan  nations.  But  notwithstanding 
all  this  it  denoted  a  very  decided  change  to  a  lower  level 
in  the  popular  understanding  of  Christianity. 

While,  however,  the  introduction  of  the  worship  of 
saints  is  a  striking  illustration  of  this  paganization  of 
Christianity,  another  result  of  it  was  much  more  im^Dor- 
tant  in  the  development  of  the  constitution  of  the  church, 
that  result  which  is  called  the  "  externalizing  "  of  Chris- 
tianity— its  transformation  from  a  religion  of  the  spirit 
into  a  religion  of  externals. 

In  the  place  of  the  inner  spiritual  life,  as  the  deter- 
mining characteristic  of  the  Christian,  were  placed,  more 
and  more  as  the  spiritual  side  was  lost  sight  of,  forms 
and  intellectual  beliefs  and  membership  in  a  visible 
church.  If  one  accepted  the  theology  of  the  chm-ch,  and 
conformed  to  its  regulations,  and  was  in  regular  standing 
in  some  local  church,  he  was  a  Christian.  If  he  refused 
to  accept  some  point  of  the  theology  and  Avas  cast  out  of 
the  church,  or  if  for  any  reason  he  was  not  to  be  found 


116  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

within  its  visible  membership,  then  he  Avas  not  a  Chris- 
tian, no  matter  what  profession  he  might  make.'  Such 
tests  as  these  were  much  easier  to  understand  and  to 
apply  than  the  older  spiritual  conceptions. 

It  may  be  difficult  to  see,  as  some  have  suggested,  how 
Christianity  could  have  been  preserved  at  all,  during  the 
ages  which  were  to  follow,  without  this  compact  organi- 
zation, and  without  this  great  body  of  theology,  esteemed 
so  vitally  important  as  to  be  maintained  at  all  hazards, 
and,  because  it  was  purely  intellectual,  far  more  easily 
retained  in  times  of  general  decline  than  the  deeper  spir- 
itual truths  of  religion.  But  the  whole  effect  was  to 
transform  Christianity  in  the  world  into  a  definite,  visible 
bod}^  sharply  defined  from  non- Christians  and  from  here- 
tics, distinguished  everywhere  by  the  same  external, 
easily  recognized  signs  and  marks,  its  members  readily 
counted  and  measured. 

When  the  idea  of  such  a  distinct  unity  came  to  pre- 
vail, and  when  it  had  begun  to  express  itself  in  the  use 
of  common  ceremonies  and  a  common  creed,  made  with 
great  care  to  conform  to  the  recognized  standards,  it  was 
perfectly  natural,  inevitable  indeed,  that  a  further  step 
should  be  taken,  that  the  mere  fact  of  the  formation,  to 
such  an  extent,  of  a  universal  community  should  become 
itself  a  most  powerful  force  in  creating  a  community  of 
law  and  administration ;  in  forming,  in  other  words,  a 
common  ecclesiastical  government  which  should  corre- 
spond to,  and  guard  and  regulate  the  community  of  cere- 
monies and  doctrines  already  formed.     The  constant  ap- 

'  Do  they  who  are  met  together  outside  the  church  of  Christ  think 
that  Christ  is  with  them  when  they  have  met  ?  Even  if  such  persons 
may  have  been  put  to  death  in  confession  of  the  Name,  this  stain  is  not 
washed  away  by  their  blood.  .  .  .  It  is  not  possible  for  one  to  be  a 
martyr  who  is  not  in  the  church.  .  .  .  They  cannot  abide  with 
God  who  are  unwilling  to  be  in  concord  with  the  church.  — St.  Cyprian 
of  Carthage,  De  Cath.  Ecc.  Uuitate,  chaps.  13  and  14. 


THE   FORMATION   OF   THE   PAPACY  117 

peal  to  an  ideal  unity  tended  strongly  to  create  a  real 
one. 

The  second  of  the  two  great  causes  which  led  to  the 
formation  of  the  monarchical  church  was  Rome — the 
group  of  influences  and  ideas  which  grew  out  of  the  his- 
tory and  position  of  Rome  and  the  Roman  empire.  So 
decisive  and  controlling  are  these,  when  taken  together, 
that  we  may  say  that  without  them  the  monarchical 
church  would  never  have  existed. 

In  the  first  place,  Rome  was  the  capital  of  the  political 
world.  What  could  be  more  natural  than  that  it  should 
be  looked  upon  also  as  the  religious  capital  of  the  world. 
The  fact  that  he  was  the  bishop  of  the  actual  capital  city 
was  perhaps  the  most  important  cause  which  established 
the  power  of  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople  over  the 
East.  But  even  after  the  establishment  of  Constanti- 
nople Rome  continued  to  be  looked  upon  as  in  some 
especial  sense  the  central  city  and  capital  of  the  world, 
and  the  feeling  which  had  helped  the  bishop  of  Con- 
stantinople would  be  a  much  greater  aid  to  the  bishop 
of  Rome. 

In  the  second  place,  the  Roman  imperialism  was  the 
only  constitutional  model  which  the  early  church  had  be- 
fore it.  As  it  began  to  grow  into  a  common  organization 
of  widely  separated  provinces,  it  could  hardly  do  other- 
wise than  to  take  the  shape  of  the  only  government  of 
that  sort  which  the  world  had  known,  and  to  copy  not 
merely  names,  like  diocese,  but  also  offices  and  methods. 
It  is  an  interesting  fact,  however,  that  this  copying  was 
by  no  means  slavish,  but  along  with  it  a  free  political 
genius  was  also  at  work,  inventing  new  institutions  for 
new  needs,  as  is  seen,  at  least  in  its  more  characteristic 
features,  in  the  important  evolution  of  the  church  coun- 
cil. 

Again,  in  the  third  place,  just  as  the  ancient  Greek 


118  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

pliilosoj)liic  spirit  awoke  to  a  new  life  and  power  in  de- 
veloping the  theological  system  of  the  early  church,  so 
also  the  old  Roman  genius  for  political  organization  and 
rule  found  a  new  field  for  its  activity,  and  a  new  empire 
to  found  in  the  creation  of  the  Papacy.  There  was  no 
longer  any  opportunity  for  it  in  the  political  sphere.  Its 
work  was  finished  there,  but  in  the  history  of  the  West- 
ern church  there  was  a  succession  of  great  spirits,  men  of 
imperial  ideas  and  genius,  which  recalls  the  line  of 
statesmen  of  earlier  Roman  days,  and  accomplished  a 
similar  work.  Julius,  Innocent,  Leo,  and  Gregory,  each 
the  first  of  his  name,  bishops  of  Rome,  and  Ambrose, 
bishop  of  Milan,  are  examples,  only,  of  the  men  who, 
whether  the  opportunity  which  was  offered  to  them  to 
advance  the  power  of  their  office  and  to  create  definite 
constitutional  precedents  was  large  or  small,  saw  in  it  its 
fullest  possibilities  and  used  it  for  the  utmost  gain.  It 
was  in  the  minds  of  these  men,  and  in  the  atmosphere  of 
Rome,  where  every  influence  was  of  empire  and  all  the 
traditions  imperial,  that  the  idea  first  took  shape  that  the 
one  great  church  should  find  its  head,  its  divinely  or- 
dained primate,  in  the  bishop  of  Rome  ;  vaguely  at  fii'st, 
no  doubt,  and  with  slowly  growing  consciousness,  but 
definitely  enough  to  form  a  consistent  working  model, 
through  all  the  varying  circumstances  of  their  different 
reigns. 

Under  this  head  also  should  be  included  the  legal 
tendency  of  the  Roman  mind.  To  this  more  than  to  any- 
thing else  is  due  the  creation  of  a  great  body  of  theology 
suited  in  character  to  the  Western  mind — a  system  not  so 
finely  sjjeculative  as  the  Eastern,  but  practical  and  legal 
and  clearly  systematic.  This  gave  to  the  West,  as  a  defin- 
ing and  organizing  core,  a  body  of  doctrines  of  its  own, 
independent  of  the  Eastern,  and  tended  to  give  to  it,  also, 
a  secure  position  as  a  separate  church  organization.     The 


.  THE   FORMATION   OF   THE   PAPACY  119 

genius,  indeed,  of  its  great  constructive  theologian,  St, 
Augustine,  one  of  the  greatest  names  in  the  intellectual 
history  of  the  world,  surpasses  even  the  genius  of  its 
great  constructive  pontiffs.  It  was  his  work  to  give  to 
the  Western  church,  just  ]:)eginning  to  take  on  its  separ- 
ate existence,  the  crystallizing  body  of  thought  which  it 
needed  to  put  into  definite  and  scientific  statement  the 
things  for  which  it  stood  and  which  gave  it  distinctive 
existence.  The  church  did  not  remain  true  to  all  the 
teachings  of  St.  Augustine,  but  the  influence  of  his  theol- 
ogy in  the  formative  age  of  the  Roman  church  may  easily 
be  inferred  from  the  strong  constnictive  influence  which 
it  exerted  in  a  later  and  more  familiar  age  when  eccle- 
siastical organizations  were  again  taking  shape — in  the 
age  of  the  Reformation. 

Again,  the  idea  of  the  divinely  founded  and  eternal 
empire  of  Eome  was  a  most  potent  influence.  In  the 
pagan  mind  this  had  been  formed  under  the  influence 
of  the  widely  extended  conquests  of  Eome,  doubtless  as 
a  vague  reaching  after  a  reasonable  explanation  of  such 
wonderful  successes  and  such  an  unparalleled  power. 
This  idea  the  Christians  had  taken  up  and  transformed 
into  a  still  wider  conception,  adding  to  it  that  idea 
which  they  held  so  strongly  of  the  growing  kingdom  of 
Christ  which  was  to  fill  the  whole  world,  and  thus  they 
made  it  the  foundation  of  what  has  been  called  justly,  at 
least  so  far  as  definiteness  of  conception  goes,  the  first 
philosophy  of  history.' 

'  St.  AujTustine's  idea  of  the  two  cities,  the  two  opposed  common- 
wealths continuing  through  history,  the  city  of  God  or  of  righteousness, 
and  the  city  of  Satan  or  of  wickedness,  is  a  clearly  conceived  philos- 
ophy of  history,  and  one  which  still  retains  its  holfl,  even  literally,  in 
the  form  in  which  he  stated  it,  over  many  minds.  It  needs,  indeed, 
but  very  little  modification  of  terms  and  definitions  to  be  accepted,  as  a 
fairly  correct  description  of  what  history  is,  by  one  who  holds  any  of 
the  modern  theories. 


120  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Rome  was  for  the  Cliristian,  as  for  the  pagan,  a  di- 
vinely founded  empire  and  destined  to  be  eternal.  The 
one  God,  however,  took  the  place  of  the  pagan  divinities 
as  the  divine  architect,  and  his  final  pui'j^ose  was  to  be 
found,  the  Christian  thought,  not  in  a  gTeat  political  em- 
pire but  in  the  one  gTeat  spiritual  and  religious  unity  of 
the  world  which  that  political  empire  had  rendered  pos- 
sible. Rome  prepared  the  way  for,  and  prefigured  the 
kingdom  of  Christ. 

The  influence  of  this  conception  upon  the  idea  of  the 
Christian  church,  as  forming  a  world-embracing  unity 
organized  intoi'  one  united  government,  can  hardly  be 
overstated.  The  fact  that  we  may  now  be  able  to  put 
the  thought  into  more  definite  language  than  even  St. 
Augustine  in  any  single  passage,  is  no  evidence  that  its 
influence  was  not  profound,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
but  that  this  "  idea  of  Rome  "  was  one  of  the  most  pow- 
erful forces  in  creating  that  conception  of  a  necessary 
church  unity  in  belief  and  organization  which  is  one  of 
the  corner-stones,  the  one  essential  foundation  indeed, 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  monarchy. 

There  ought  to  be  mentioned,  perhaps,  in  close  con- 
nection wdth  this  idea  of  the  divine  purj^ose  in  history, 
though  it  cannot  be  clearly  proved  to  be  an  outgro^ih 
of  it,  the  belief  which  grew  up  in  the  church,  of  the 
position  assigned  to  the  Apostle  Peter.  The  more  or 
less  conscious  belief  in  a  necessary  church  unity  must 
certainly  have  been  wide-spread  before  any  such  idea 
could  have  been  formed  regarding  him,  but  when  it  had 
once  taken  shape  it  became  a  most  efiicient  influence  in 
creating  an  actual  unity  and  making  Rome  its  centre. 
It  is  hard,  in  the  absence  of  decisive  historical  evidence, 
to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  belief  that  Rome  was 
destined  by  Pro^ddence  to  be  the  religious  capital  of 
the  M'orld,  was  the  sole  basis  of  the  tradition  that  Peter 


THE  FOKMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY        121 

was  bishop  of  Kome.'  The  two  lines  of  belief  certainly 
ran  together  as  may  be  indicated  in  this  way  :  A  literal 
interpretation  of  certain  passages  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment appears  to  indicate  that  Christ  gave  to  Peter  au- 
thority over  the  other  apostles  ;  therefore  Peter's  church 
would  have  authority  over  other  churches.  But  the 
divine  plan  of  history  makes  Eome  the  political  cap- 
ital of  all  the  world;  therefore  it  was  the  divine  pur- 
pose, since  the  political  exists  for  the  sake  of  the 
religious,  that  Rome  should  be  the  world's  religious 
capital.  So  Peter  the  prince  of  the  apostles  founds 
his  church  in  Rome,  the  capital  city,  and  by  Christ's 
direct  authority  and  by  the  evident  divine  plan  of 
history  the  Roman  church  is  supreme  over  all  other 
churches. 

This  argument  was  undoubtedly  first  developed  in  a 
purely  theoretical  form  against  heretics  and  separatists, 
as  in  the  treatise  of  Cyprian  of  Carthage  already  quoted. 
Christ  gave  to  Peter  an  ideal  supremacy  over  the  other 
apostles  as  a  symbol  of  the  great  truth  which  he  taught 
in  so  many  forms  that  the  spiritual  kingdom  which  he 
founded  should  remain  one  and  indivisible.  But  it  was 
impossible  that  the  idea  once  formed  should  remain 
merely  theoretical.  As  the  monarchical  constitution 
began  to  take  shape,  it  must  itself  become  an  actual 
ground  of  belief  that  such  a  constitution  was  divinely 
ordained,  and,  with  the  change  in  the  general  conception 
of  Christianity  which  has  been  noticed  from  the  spiritual 
to  the  external,  the  appeal  to  the  actual  and  visible  or- 
ganization as  an  evidence  of  the  divine  intention  would 
be  an  exceedingly  strong  argument. 

In  many  directions  the  special  situation  of  the  Roman 
church  and  its  peculiar  characteristics  were  of  very  great 

'  See,  however,  the  strong  argument  in  favor  of  the  tradition  in  Ram- 
say's T?ie  Church  in  tfui  Roman  Empire  before  A.u.  170.     Loud.,  181)3. 


122  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

value  in  extending  its  influence,  and  finally  in  establish- 
ing its  supremacy. 

It  was  situated  in  the  only  great  city  of  the  West. 
There  were  in  the  West  no  cities  like  Alexandria  and 
Antioch  in  the  East,  natural  capitals  of  great  geographi- 
cal divisions  of  the  empire,  whose  bishops  would  be 
tempted  to  cherish  plans  of  independence  and  extended 
rule.  Carthage  was  early  shut  out  from  any  such  possi- 
ble rivalry  by  the  Arian  Yandal  conquest  of  Africa,  which 
forced  the  African  church  into  closer  dependence  upon 
Rome.  The  actual  struggle  of  Milan  and  Aries  for  inde- 
pendence shows  how  great  the  danger  from  this  source 
might  have  been  had  stronger  cities  existed. 

The  Roman  church  was  the  only  apostolic  church  in 
the  West.  It  was  an  apostolic  church,  even  if  not  Peter's, 
for  Paul  had  labored  there  and  had  written  it  a  very  im- 
portant epistle.  As  doubts  and  divisions  began  to  arise 
in  the  church  on  various  theological  points,  such  churches 
were  thought  to  preserve  a  more  pure  tradition  of  the 
primitive  teaching  than  others,  and  questions  of  difficulty 
began  to  be  referred  to  them  for  advice  and  explanation, 
and  their  doctrine  began  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  stand- 
ard. Rome  was  the  only  church  in  the  West  to  which 
such  reference  could  be  made.' 

The  Roman  was  the  largest  and  strongest  church  in 
the  West.  It  was  also  much  the  richest  church  and  it 
had  been  very  generous  in  its  gifts  to  poorer  and  weak- 
er churches,  which  looked  to  it  for  help. 

It  was  also  with  remarkable  uniformity  an  orthodox 

church.     In  the  days  of  the  forming  theology  and  of  the 

'  As  an  early  instance,  we  have  Tlieodosius  the  Great  declaring  his 
will,  in  380,  with  special  reference  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  that 
all  people  subject  to  his  rule  "should  hold  that  faith  which  the  divine 
Peter  the  Apostle  delivered  to  the  Romans,  and  which  now  the  pontiff 
Damasus,  and  Peter,  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  follow." — Cod.  TheoiL, 
xvi,,  1. 


THE   FOKMATION   OF   THE   PAPACY  123 

forming  primacy  there  was  great  danger  that  the  Roman 
church  or  the  Roman  bishop  might,  now  and  then,  adopt 
a  doctrine  which  the  opinion  of  the  majority  would  not 
finally  sanction,  a  danger  which  became  practically  im- 
possible when  the  primacy  was  once  established.  The 
fact  that  this  actually  happened  in  only  one  or  two  un- 
important cases,  gained  for  the  doctrinal  opinion  of  the 
bishop  of  Rome  a  weight  of  authority  which  it  could  not 
otherwise  have  had.  This  general  doctrinal  orthodoxy  is, 
perhaps,  partly  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  theologi- 
cal differences  were  much  less  numerous  and  less  extreme 
in  the  West  than  in  the  more  subtly  philosophical  East. 
At  any  rate,  this  fact  made  the  recognition  of  the  doc- 
trinal authority  of  the  Roman  church  a  relatively  sim- 
ple matter.  But  while  the  opinions  which  it  represent- 
ed gained  the  victory  over  all  opposing  views,  the  Ro- 
man church,  nevertheless,  was  very  tolerant  of  varia- 
tions of  belief  which  it  did  not  consider  essential,  and  it 
did  not  make  the  conditions  hard  for  the  retm'n  of  the 
dissenter  who  had  seen  the  error  of  his  ways.  The  gen- 
eral tolerance  and  wisdom  of  its  doctrinal  oversight 
made  the  growth  of  a  uniformity  of  belief  imder  its  head- 
ship comparatively  easy. 

The  Roman  church  was  a  very  active  missionary 
church.  A  large  number  of  the  chm-ches  throughout  the 
whole  West  had  been  founded  as  missions  from  Rome 
and  looked  to  it  with  a  natural  sense  of  dependence  for 
guidance  and  direction  as  to  the  mother  church.  The 
conversion  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  Catholic  Christianity 
by  missionaries  sent  from  Rome  by  Pope  Gregory  I.,  had 
results  of  great  importance,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  for 
the  preservation  and  increase  of  the  papal  power  in  a 
critical  period  of  its  history. 

So  many  things  we  have  been  able  to  notice,  tenden- 
cies in  the  church  itself,  Roman  ideas  and  traditions  of 


124  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

empire,  cliaracteristics  of  the  Koman  clmrcli  and  its 
bishops,  whicli  shaped  from  wdthin,  as  we  may  say,  the 
external  constitution.  But  not  merely  these  things, 
others  also,  of  a  different  sort,  worked  toward  the  same 
result.  Especially  deserving  of  mention  are  certain  his- 
torical events,  happening  beyond  the  control  of  the 
Roman  bishops,  or  not  directly  sought  by  them,  which 
became,  however,  when  they  had  onCe  occurred,  most 
active  causes  in  this  development. 

Fu'st  to  be  considered  is  the  founding  of  Constanti- 
nople. The  first  emperor  who  professed  Christianity 
removed  the  seat  of  the  government  to  the  East,  mainly 
in  all  probability  for  strategic  reasons,  and  though  at  a 
later  time  emperors  resided  for  long  periods  in  the  West,, 
Eome  ceased  to  be  the  seat  of  government  even  for  them. 
The  bishop  of  Rome  was  left  with  no  more  powerful  and 
overshadowing  presence  beside  him,  to  reduce  his  im- 
portance by  the  constant  comparison.  He  was  not  so 
du'ectly  under  the  control  of  the  emperor  as  he  would 
otherwise  have  been,  and  his  theological  views  seemed  at 
a  distance  much  less  important  than  if  he  had  been  the 
bishop  of  the  immediate  court.  As  a  result,  the  bishops 
of  Home  were  able  to  preserve  much  more  independence 
of  action  than  were  the  bishops  of  Constantinople,  and 
to  maintain  a  consistency  of  theology  impossible  to  their 
rivals,  subject  to  the  demands  of  a  court  which  was  con- 
tinually in  revolution. 

In  another  direction  the  distance  of  the  emperor  had 
important  consequences.  After  the  Lombard  conquest 
of  Italy  the  political  control  of  the  eastern  emperor  over 
the  city  of  Eome  and  its  neighborhood  became  hardly 
more  than  nominal.  The  Exarch  of  Ravenna  was  in 
name  the  representative  of  the  emperor,  but  he  could 
do  nothing  to  help  Rome  in  its  struggle  to  preserve  its 
independence  of  the  Lombard,  and  the  conduct  of  the 


THE   FOEMATION   OF   THE  PAPACY  125 

defence,  and  even  tlie  local  political  administration, 
passed  natiu'ally  into  the  hands  of  the  bishop,  the  most 
important  officer  in  the  city.  In  this  way  there  was 
gradual]}'  added  to  the  general  ecclesiastical  power  which 
the  bishops  were  acquiring  the  A^ii-tually  independent 
political  government  of  a  little  state. 

This  incipient  temporal  power  was  greatly  extended 
by  Gregory  I.,  who  commissioned  civil  and  military  of- 
ficers, made  peace  independently  of  the  empire,  and 
claimed  a  position  above  the  exarch.  This  little  territory 
thus  acquired  was  enlarged  by  the  gifts  of  the  Frankish 
kings,  and  grew  into  the  States  of  the  Chui'ch,  so  con- 
trolling an  influence  in  the  policy  of  the  papacy,  and  a 
stone  of  offence  in  all  international  politics  from  Gregory 
I.  to  the  present  time.  That  it  was  of  immense  value 
to  the  popes,  as  supreme  rulers  of  the  world  chm-cli 
through  all  the  medieval  times,  that  they  were  not  bish- 
ops of  any  political  realm,  save  of  the  shadowy  Roman 
empire,  but  occupied  an  independent  temporal  position, 
cannot  be  denied ;  that  it  has  been  a  decided  injury  to 
the  Catholic  Church  in  modern  times,  when  all  interests, 
both  ecclesiasticd  and  political,  are  viewed  from  a  wholly 
different  stand-point,  is  almost  equally  clear. 

Another  event,  the  sack  of  Eome  by  Alaric,  in  410,  aided 
somewhat  in  the  gTowth  of  this  local  power.  The  aristo- 
cratic society  of  ''^'^  capital  city,  closely  bound  up  ^^■itll 
the  Roman  past,  by  tradition  and  by  the  nominal  positions 
which  they  still  held,  had  remained  obstinately  pagan. 
The  bishop  of  Rome,  supported  by  the  mass  of  the  popu- 
lation, and  holding  an  office  of  great  power,  was  yet  not  of 
the  highest  local  consideration  so  long  as  the  senate  and 
the  aristocracy  remained  unclu'istian.  Alaric's  sack  of 
Rome,  which  largely  spared  tlie  Clu-istians,  scattered  and 
ruined  this  pagan  society  and  left  the  bishop  and  his  cler- 
gy without  social,  as  they  had  been  without  official,  rivals. 


126  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Another  event  of  this  sort  was  a  decision  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Sardica,  in  the  year  343.  This  council  had  been 
called  to  reconcile,  if  possible,  the  parties  which  had 
grown  up  in  the  church  out  of  the  Arian  controversy  ; 
but  it  had  failed  of  its  object,  and  the  Arian  representa- 
tives had  seceded  to  hold  a  meeting  by  themselves  in 
Philipopolis.  The  party  remaining,  we  might  call  it  an 
ex-pcu'te  council,  decreed  a  limited  right  of  appeal  from 
local  decisions  to  Julius,  at  that  time  Bishop  of  Rome. 
The  measure  was  adopted  as  a  means  of  self-defence  to 
protect  the  orthodox  bishops  of  the  Eastern  European 
provinces  from  the  Arian  majority  there,  but  its  influ- 
ence became  in  time  much  wider  than  was  originally  in- 
tended. It  came  to  be  understood  to  legalize  all  sorts  of 
appeals  to  Rome,  and  especially  when,  with  the  decline 
of  historical  knowledge,  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of 
Sardica  became  confused  with  those  of  the  much  more 
influential  Council  of  Nicfea,  thej^  seemed  to  give  a  sanc- 
tion of  the  highest  authority  to  the  claims  of  the  pope. 
Many  other  things  also  favored  the  growth  of  appeals  to 
Rome,  and  a  supreme  judicial  authorit  ,•  in  the  papacy 
was  gradually  recognized  throughout  ^jhe  West,  though 
not  without  some  determined  resistance. 

In  the  year  445,  Innocent  I.,  involved  in  a  desperate 
conflict  with  the  Archbishop  of  Aries,  obtained  from  the 
Emperor  Yalentinian  III.  an  edict  fLx  blaring  in  the  most 
explicit  terms  the  supremacy  of  theuxi^aop  of  Rome  over 
the  church  of  the  empire  in  both  judicial  and  administra- 
tive matters,  as  a  necessary  means  of  peace  and  unity, 
and  commanding  the  imperial  ofiicers  to  compel  the  dis- 
obedient to  submit  to  his  authority.  This  was  apparent- 
ly decisive  in  the  struggle  with  Aries,  but  that  it  had  any 
large  or  permanent  influence  in  favor  of  the  papacy  does 
not  seem  likely.  The  empire  was  now  falling  rapidly  to 
pieces.  The.  imperial  power  was  weak,  and  only  here  and 


THE   FORMATION   OF  THE   PAPACY  127 

there  really  respected.  Large  parts  of  the  West  were 
already  in  the  hands  of  Arian  Germans.  Had  it  not  been 
for  the  fact  that  the  current  was  already  setting  strongly 
toward  papal  supremacy,  and  all  influences  combining  to 
further  it,  this  edict  of  Valentinian's  would  probably 
have  had  no  appreciable  effect.  As  it  was,  its  effect 
could  not  have  been  great. 

A  more  important  cause  of  the  advancement  of  the 
papacy  was  undoubtedly  the  dissolution  of  the  Western 
Empire  itself.  It  might  seem  as  if  the  church  would  be 
involved  in  this  dissolution,  and  that  when  the  imperial 
authority  disappeared  the  authority  of  the  pope,  which 
had  grown  up  under  its  shadow,  and  upon  the  model 
which  the  empire  had  furnished,  would  fall  to  ruins  with 
it.  But  the  church  was  now  too  strong  and  too  indepen- 
dent. The  causes  which  destroyed  the  empire  did  not 
affect  it,  and  it  easily  maintained  its  real  authority  when 
that  of  the  empire  had  become  a  mere  theory.  Indeed  the 
immediate  effect  of  the  destruction  of  the  political  unity 
and  of  the  establishment  of  independent  German  king- 
doms was  to  draw  the  surviving  Roman  life  in  the  prov- 
inces into  a  rGore  close  dependence  upon  the  chui'ch  as 
the  only  representative  of  the  old  common  life.  The  dis- 
solution of  tilt  enipii"e  left  the  papacy  the  immediate  and 
natural  heir  of  j^^  position  and  traditions. 

In  the  peric)cl  w'hich  followed  the  German  conquest, 
by  far  the  mo^f,  aocisive  influence  was  the  alliance  of 
the  papacy  with  the  Franks ;  it  was,  indeed,  one  of  the 
most  eventful  coalitions  ever  entered  into  in  historj:. 
It  is  no  abuse  of  terms  to  call  this  an  alliance,  for  though 
doubtless  there  was  no  definite  treaty,  nor  even  a  con- 
scious bargain,  it  was  really  a  combination  which  the 
two  great  powers  of  the  future,  fairly  ecpial  parties  in 
position  and  promise,  formed  with  one  another  at  the 
outset  of  their  common   historv,  and  which   they  drew 


128  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

more  and  more  close  as  tlie  circmnstances  of  tlieir  growth 
made  it  increasingly  useful.  It  was  one  of  tlie  essential 
influences  which  preserved  the  papacy  from  the  great 
danger  of  being  completely  absorbed  in  the  overshadow- 
ing Frankish  power  that  there  w-as  behind  them  both 
this  history  of  mutual  helpfulness  and  respect.  The 
details  of  this  alliance  and  its  results  belong  elsewhere. 
It  should  be  held  in  mind,  however,  as  one  of  the  most 
helpful  historical  influences  in  the  formative  age  of  the 
papal  monarchy. 

This  cannot  pretend  to  be  a  complete  statement  of 
the  causes  which  led  to  the  supremacy  of  the  Koman 
church  and  of  its  bishop  over  the  whole  church.  No 
such  statement  has  ever  yet  been  made,  and  very  likely 
none  is  possible.  It  is  complete  enough,  however,  to 
show  how  all  things,  influences  the  most  widely  sepa- 
rated in  character  and  time,  religious  and  political  and- 
traditional,  sentiment  and  law  and  theology,  deliberate 
purpose  and  unforeseen  events,  all  combine  to  lead  to 
this  common  conclusion. 

This  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  necessities 
of  the  time. demanded  such  a  result,  and  that  the  mon- 
archical church  had  a  great  work  to  do  which  could  have 
been  done  by  nothing  else  so  well,  ft  is  not  difiicult 
now  to  see  what  this  work  was. 

Two  great  dangers  threatened  the  ^c,>Ay  chiwch.  One 
was  that  it  might  be  absorbed  in  the  state,  and  come  to 
bear  the  same  relation  to  it  that  the  pagan  religion  had 
borne,  its  subservient  handmaid,  a  subordinate  depart- 
ment of  the  government  to  be  controlled  and  directed 
to  political  ends.  How  great  this  danger  was  can  be 
seen  in  several  periods  of  the  history  of  the  church  in 
the  Eastern  Empire  when  such  a  result  actually  happened. 
But  however  great  this  danger  may  have  been  under 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY        129 

the  empire,  it  became  far  greater  on  the  establishment 
of  the  German  kingdoms  in  the  West.  Not  merely  the 
Arian  states,  but  the  Catholic  Carolingian  state,  threat- 
ened at  times  the  absorption  of  the  church  in  the  state 
and  the  control  of  it  for  purposes  foreign  to  its  own. 
It  is  impossible  to  see  how  the  church  could  have  escaped 
this  danger  without  the  compact  and  strong  interstate 
organization  which  had  been  given  it,  directed  by  a 
single  head  and  according  to  a  single  plan.  Such  a 
power,  extending  beyond  the  limits  of  a  single  state,  and 
fairly  on  a  level  with  that  of  the  king,  commanded  re- 
spect for  its  vigorous  teaching  of  the  necessary  separation 
of  church  and  state  and  of  the  independent  sphere  of 
cliurch  activity. 

The  other  danger  to  which  the  early  church  was  ex- 
posed was  that  the  barbarizing  process  from  which  the 
Christian  religion  did- suffer  so  greatly  miglit  complete 
its  work,  and  the  spiritual  truths  of  Christianity,  so  faintly 
held  and  rarely  proclaimed  in  their  simple  form,  might 
be  entirely  lost  from  civilization.  This  danger,  also, 
like  the  other,  became  extreme  with  the  coming  in  of 
the  Germans.  Christianity  had  obtained  such  a  hold 
upon  the  Roman  ^orld  that  the  classic  paganism  was 
absorbed,  with  results  which  were  deplorable  certainly, 
even  if.  unavoidable,  but  which  were  not  absolutely  fatal. 
But  would  not  a  new  deluge  of  religious  barbarism, 
foreign  to  classic  ideas,  and  far  less  cultivated  in  other 
directions,  have  failed  to  gain  even  a  faint  conception  of 
the  higher  truth  and  have  destroyed  completely  all 
understanding  •  of  the  religious  side  of  the  neAv  faith, 
if  this  had  not  been  embodied  and  encased  in  an  ex- 
ternal shell  of  forms  and  doctrines  and  constitution 
strongly  enough  fixed  to  rei^ist  the  attack?  The  very 
paganizing  itself  wliicli  Christianity  had  undergone,  by 
bringing  it  down  nearer  to  the  level  on  which  the  Ger- 
9 


130  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

mans  stood,  was  a  defence  against  further  paganizing. 
The  German  conquest  did  undonhtedly  have  some  further 
corrupting  effect,  but  that  it  did  not  have  a  greater  in- 
fluence and  actually  complete  the  work  of  barbarization, 
as  it  did  complete  it  in  science  and  in  language,  is  due 
to  the  profound  impression  which  the  church,  with  its 
real  power,  its  gorgeous  ceremonial,  and  its  authoritative 
and  infallible  teaching  made  upon  the  Germans.  That 
the  church  was  so  well  organized,  its  forms  and  ritual 
so  well  settled,  and  its  teaching  so  definite  and  uniform 
when  the  invasions  fell  upon  it,  was  what  saved  it  from 
destruction  and  made  it  a  great  reconstructive  force  in 
the  new  order  of  things. 

This  work  of  reconstniction,  which  the  church  began 
even  while  the  destruction  of  the  Old  World  was  still 
going  on,  must  be  regarded  as  a  very  large  part  of  the 
positive  work  which  the  monarchical  church  had  to  do. 
It  Avas  necessary  for  the  future  that  something  should  in- 
corporate the  Germans  into  the  ancient  civilization,  and 
make  them  its  continuators,  and  though  this  was  to  be  a 
long  and  almost  hopeless  labor,  it  was  absolutely  essen- 
tial that  it  should  be  begun  at  once.  But  everything 
was  in  ruins  except  the  Catholic  Church.  That  was 
organized  and  in  active  operation.  It  did  not  fall  or 
lose  vitality  when  the  empire  fell.  The  overthrow  of  the 
political  unity  only  bound  the  disunited  provinces  so 
much  the  more  closely  to  itself.  The  Germans  had 
nothing  to  put  in  its  place.  It  therefore  remained,  as  it 
had  been,  a  living  force  out  of  the  past,  continuing  the 
ancient  world  into  the  medieval.  But  without  this 
strong  and  universal  government  the  church  would  not 
only  have  run  great  risks  of  failing  to  impress  itself  upon 
the  German  barbarians,  but  it  could  never  have  created 
in  them  that  respect  for  its  power,  and  that  idea  of  its 
indisputable  authority  which  not  merely  kept  the  con- 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY        131 

queror  within  bounds,  but  carried  over  into  tlie  new  states 
and  the  new  conditions  so  many  of  the  results  which 
antiquity  had  reached.  In  every  separate  kingdom, 
even  in  the  Anglo-Saxon,  which  was  held  to  the  ancient 
world  by  no  other  bond,  the  priest  of  every  insignificant 
hamlet  was  a  member  of  an  independent  government 
which  extended  far  beyond  the  boundaries  of  the  king- 
dom, and  which  awakened  awe  and  commanded  obedience 
when  it  spoke  through  him.  He  was  a  check  on  the  de- 
structive passions  of  the  barbarian  lord  of  the  village, 
and  taught  him  new  virtues  and  new  ideas. 

Besides  the  papacy  there  grew  up  in  the  early  church 
another  institution  which  demands  our  attention  from 
its  wide  and  long  -  continued  influence  —  the  monastic 
system. 

Monasticism  is  undoubtedly  of  Oriental  origin,  and 
originates  in  Oriental  ways  of  looking  at  life  as  itself  an 
evil  and  something  from  which  the  holy  man  must  escape 
as  completely  as  he  can,  even  if  possible  from  conscious- 
ness itself.'  When  the  changing  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity had  introduced  into  the  church  ideas  of  sin  and 
holiness,  and  of  the  evils  of  life  not  wholly  unlike  Orien- 
tal ideas  on  the  same  subjects,  the  ascetic  spirit,  which 
was  undoubtedly  present  in  Christianity  to  some  extent 
fro)n  the  beginning,  received  a  strong  impulse  and  ex- 
tended even  into  the  West,  where  the  natural  tendencies 
were  not  ascetic.  If  the  Christian  life  is  one  of  ob- 
servances, if  freedom  from  sin  is  to  be  secured  by 
penance  and  by  fleeing  from  temptations,  then  the 
holiest  life  will  be  secured  by  abandoning  the  world  (en- 
tirely, and  either  alone,  in  solitude,  or  in  company  with 
a  few  others  like  minded,  giving  one's  self  wholly  u])  to 

'  Soinetliing  of  an  idea  of  the  early  moiiaaticism  and  of  the  original 
literature  relating  to  it  may  be  obtained  from  Kingsley's  Hermits. 


132  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

penances,  and  mortifications  of  the  flesh,  and  pious  ob- 
servances. The  more  external  and  formal  the  religii^us 
life  became,  the  stronger  became  the  tendency  toward 
the  ascetic  and  monastic  ideal. 

This  was  not  the  only  thing,  however,  which  gave 
monasticism  its  disproportionate  influence  during  the 
middle  ages.  There  is  at  times,  in  the  life  of  nearly 
every  man,  a  longing  for  a  life  of  quiet  contemplation, 
in  which,  free  from  all  cares  and  responsibilities  and 
uncongenial  duties,  he  may  give  himself  up  wholly  to 
spiritual  meditation,  or  to  his  favorite  intellectual  pur- 
suits, under  no  compulsion,  however,  or  imcomfortable 
sense  of  the  duty  of  literary  production.  The  history  of 
the  English  university  fellowshij)s  is  full  of  examples 
of  the  influence  of  this  feeling,  and  one  thinks  easily  of 
more  than  one  case  in  modern  times,  outside  monasti- 
cism, where  the  opportunities  of  such  a  life  have  been 
used  to  some  good  purpose.  This  feeling  is  especially 
strong  and  frequent  in  student  days,  the  time  of  life 
when  the  medieval  boy  was  in  the  hands  of  the  monk, 
and  when  in  natural  consequence  monasticism  received 
its  largest  reinforcements.  For  in  the  middle  ages 
there  was  no  other  opportunity  for  a  life  of  this  sort. 
The  monastery  gave  it  as  perfectly  as  it  has  ever  been 
given,  and  the  monastery  alone. 

In  still  another  way  monasticism  fiu*nished  the  only 
possible  resort  in  a  perfectly  natural  and  permanent 
need.  For  the  disappointed  and  despairing,  for  the 
broken-hearted,  especially  among  women,  whose  hopc^s 
had  been  destroyed  or  whose  interest  in  life  seemed  un- 
able to  survive  the  loss  of  friends,  the  cloister  gave  a 
refuge,  and  often  a  recovery  to  helpful  interests  and  to 
gentle  charities,  saving  a  bit  of  the  world's  good  force 
from  total  loss.  The  Protestant  has  not  infrequently 
lamented  the  absence  in  his  system  of  any  natural  and 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY        133 

ready  resort,  in  cases  of  this  kind,  and  the  consequent 
waste  of  energy,  nor  have  attempts  been  wanting  to  sup- 
ply the  lack. 

It  must  be  noticed,  also,  that  not  the  only  motive  of  a 
religious  sort  which  sustained  monasticism  was  as  selfish 
and  unchristian  as  the  desire  to  escape  from  all  duty  and 
all  contact  "with  the  world,  and  from  all  knowledge  of  sin, 
in  order  to  make  siu'e  of  one's  o^v^l  safety  in  the  world  to 
come.  The  monastic  life  was  very  often  conceived  of  as 
a  genuine  Christian  ministry,  of  wider  opportunity  than 
the  secular  priesthood,  and  entered  upon  and  lived  in 
earnest  Christian  spirit.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  also, 
that  spiritual  religion  and  genuine  Christianity  were 
much  more  common  in  the  medieval  monasteries  than 
outside  them,  and  that  however  debased  the  monastic 
life  may  have  become  at  any  giverr  time  or  place,  there 
was  throughout  the  whole  period  a  constant  succession 
of  thorough  monastic  reformations  which  restored,  for  a 
time  at  least,  its  earlier  purity  and  produced  often  a  pro- 
found impression  on  the  world  outside,  and  which  passed 
on  from  age  to  age  an  ideal  of  Christian  living,  never 
lowered  and  never  forgotten  as  an  ideal. 

It  is  certain,  however,  that  an  ascetic  monasticism  has 
its  strongest  roots  in  a  conception  of  life  and  duty  which 
is  essentially  medieval.  As  modern  forces  began  to  make 
themselves  felt  in  the  closing  centuries  of  the  middle 
ages,  not  only  did  its  power  over  society  as  a  whole  de- 
cline, but  the  system  itself  underwent  no  slight  modifi- 
cation. It  is  clearly  impossible  that  it  should  ever 
hold  the  place  or  exercise  the  influence  under  modern 
conditions  which  once  belonged  to  it. 

In  the  general  work  of  civilization,  in  addition  to  its 
work  in  the  line  of  religion,  the  influence  of  monasticism 
was  by  no  means  slight. 

It  was  a  constant  proclamation,  in  the  midst  of  a  bar- 


134  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

barous  and  crude  and  warlike  society,  of  the  duty  and 
the  glory  of  another  sort  of  life,  of  the  virtues  of  peace 
and  self-sacrifice  and  poverty  and  labor.  It  was  a  pej.^- 
petual  reminder  that  some  things  supremely  worth 
having  were  not  to  be  gained  by  strife  or  self-assertion 
or  pride  of  place,  but  that  passive  virtues  and  gentle 
lives  might  be  full  of  power.  That  monasticism  reflected 
often  the  violent  impulses  and  brutal  methods  of  the 
time,  and  sank  frequently  to  the  general  level  of  super- 
stition around  it  is  not  to  be  denied.  It  furnished  often 
examples  of  anything  but  gentle  virtues  and  subdued 
passions.  But  notwithstanding  all  that  may  be  said  of 
its  corruption,  it_did  preserve  and  hold  up  to  generaL 
view  more  perfectly  than  anything  else,  or,  as  it  seems 
likely,  than  anything  else  could  have  done  in  such  a  time," 
the  conception  of  a  nobler  life  and  the  immense  value  of 
things  not  material. 

The  one  distinguishing  characteristic  of  Western  mo- 
nasticism, in  contrast  with  that  which  generally  prevailed 
in  the  East,  was  also  of  the  greatest  value  to  civilization. 
The  Western  organizing  and  legal  genius  seized  upon  the 
simple  idea  of  solitary  life  and  isolated  communities 
which  it  had  received  from  the  East,  and  constructed 
great  monastic  orders,  covering  Europe  with  a  net-work 
of  societies  bound  together  under  a  common  law  which 
minutely  regulated  the  daily  life.'  Que  universal  and 
regular  duty  which  this  "rule"  placed  upon  the  monk 
was  the  necessity  of  being  constantly  employed.  Espe- 
cially to  be  emphasized  is  the  fact  that  this  was  work  for 
the  sake  of  work.     The  object  sought  was  not  so  much 

'  A  translation  of  tlie  Rule  of  St.  Benedict,  the  eliief  law  of  monastic 
conduct  until  the  rise  of  the  mendicant  orders  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
may  be  found  in  Select  Historical  Docitimnts  of  the  Middle  Ages,  trans- 
lated and  edited  by  Ernest  F.  Henderson  (Bohn's  Library),  pp.  274- 
314. 


THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  PAPACY        135 

what  would  be  produced  by  the  labor  as  to  keep  the 
body  and  mind  so  constantly  occupied  that  temptations 
could  find  no  access  and  sin  would  therefore  be  escaped. 
Consequently  it  was  a  matter  of  comparative  indifference 
what  the  work  was.  The  harder  and  more  painful  and 
unattractive  to  men  in  general  it  might  be,  so  much  the 
better  for  the  monk.  If  sufficiently  difficult,  the  element 
of  penance  was  added,  and  it  became  a  still  more  eflect- 
ual  means  of  grace.  In  this  way  the  monk  did  a  great 
amount  of  extremely  useful  work  which  no  one  else 
would  have  undertaken.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the 
clearing  and  reclaiming  of  land.  A  swamp  was  of  no 
value.  It  was  a  source  of  pestilence.  But  it  was  just 
the  place  for  a  monastery  because  it  made  life  especially 
hard.  And  so  the  monks  carried  in  earth  and  stone, 
and  made  a  foundation,  and  built  their  convent,  and 
then  set  to  work  to  dyke  and  drain  and  fill  up  the 
swamp,  till  they  had  turned  it  into  most  fertile  plough 
land  and  the  pestilence  ceased.  In  the  same  way  the 
monk  laboriously  Copied  manuscript  after  manuscript 
which  we  know  he  could  not  understand  from  the  errors 
in  copying  which  he  made.  But  it  kept  him  at  work  and 
so  we  have  the  copy  though  the  original  may  have  per- 
ished. 

The  monk  taught  the  farmer  better  methods  of  agri- 
culture, and  he  preserved  something  of  mechanical  skill 
and  of  the  manufacturing  arts,  and  even  added  some  im- 
provements in  them  of  his  own.  St.  Thoodulf's  plough 
and  St.  Dunstan's  anvil  were  not  inappropriately  adored 
as  holy  relics.  The  schools  were  in  his  hands.  He  kept 
alive  whatever  of  ancient  learning  remained,  and  modern 
science  owes  to  him  an  incalculable  debt  for  his  labors 
at  her  beginning.  In  childish  scrawls  lie  ])assed  on 
from  generation  to  generation  the  uictliods  of  the  fine 
arts  until  genius  finally  awoke.     It  would  be  impossible 


136  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOTT 

to  construct  the  history  of  the  middle  ages  but  for  the 
monastic  chronicles  and  the  documents  which  the  monks 
preserved.  Their  manuals  of  devotion  are  still  in  use 
in  the  churches  of  every  name.  Literature  has  been  en- 
riched by  the  works  of  their  imagination  in  chivalric 
legend  and  the  lives  of  the  miracle-working  saints,  and 
the  Christian  chui'ch  will  never  cease  to  sing  the  hymns 
which  they  composed.  In  its  worst  periods  monasti- 
cism  never  sank  below  the  surrounding  level,  and  on 
the  whole,  until  stronger  forces  began  to  work,  it  was  a 
leader  and  a  guide. 


CHAPTEK  Vn. 

THE  FRANKS  AND   CHARLEMAGNE 

In  the  account  of  tlie  German  conquest  which  was  given 
in  the  fourth  chapter  the  history  of  one  tribe — the  Franks, 
was  entirely  omitted.  The  results  of  their  occupation  of 
Gaul  were  so  important,  the  empire  which  the}'  founded, 
their  alliance  with  the  church,  their  legal  notions  and 
political  institutions  were  all  of  such  decisive  influence 
upon  the  future  that  their  history  deserves  a  separate 
treatment.  The  ideas  and  practices  of  the  Visigoths  and 
of  the  Lombards  had  important  results  in  the  national 
history  of  the  lands  where  the}^  settled.  It  would  be  neces- 
sary to  investigate  Yisigothic  law  in  order  to  understand 
the  details  of  Spanish  institutional  life.  The  Anglo- 
Saxons  will  doubtless  exert  upon  the  final  history  of  the 
world  an  influence  greater  than  that  of  the  Franks,  if  it  be 
not  already  greater.  But  it  was  the  Franks  alone  of  all  the 
German  tribes  who  became  a  Avide  power  in  the  general 
history  of  the  middle  ages.  It  is  to  them  that  the  poli- 
tical inheritance  of  the  Roman  emj)ire  passed,  to  thorn 
came  the  honor  of  taking  up  and  carrying  on,  roughly,  to 
be  sure,  and  far  less  extensively  and  cfiectively,  but  never- 
theless of  actually  carrying  on  the  political  work  A\'hich 
Eome  had  been  doing.  They  alone  represent  that  imity 
which  Rome  had  established,  and  so  far  as  that  unity  was 
maintained  at  all  as  a  definite  fact,  it  is  the  Franks  who 
maintained  it.     Its  influence  was  undoubtedly  wider  than 


138  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tlieirs,  as  felt  through  the  church  for  example,  and  yet, 
without  the  strong  reinforcement  which  the  empire  of  the 
Franks  brought  to  that  idea  of  unity,  it  would  in  all  prob- 
ability have  disappeared  as  a  separate  political  force  be- 
fore the  need  for  it  had  passed  away.' 

Originally  a  very  loose  confederation — it  is  doubtful 
even  if  they  were  so  much  as  a  confederation— of  small 
tribes  or  families  in  the  middle  and  lower  Khine  valley, 
some  of  them  in  alliance  with  Rome  and  on  Roman  ter- 
ritory, the  Franks  hardly  attracted  even  a  passing  notice 
from  either  statesman  or  historian  during  the  time  when 

'  The  great  importance  of  the  Prankish  state,  for  the  whole  political 
and  institutional  future  of  the  continent,  has  made  its  history  an  ex- 
ceedingly interesting  field  of  study,  and  for  fifty  years  and  more  it  has 
been  the  subject  of  a  most  minute  and  careful  scientific  investigation  by 
German  and  French  scholars,  who  have  examined  every  fact  from  al- 
most every  conceivable  point  of  view.  There  has  been,  on  the  part  of 
the  majority  of  German  scholars,  an  apparently  unconscious  national 
bias  which  has  led  them  to  exaggerate  the  German  elements  in  this  state, 
perhaps  not  so  much  by  way  of  actual  exaggeration  as  by  slighting  or 
disregarding  the  Roman  contributions  to  the  common  whole.  This 
tendency  has  called  out  in  France — it  would  almost  seem  as  a  definite 
protest  against  it — a  most  remarkable  series  of  books,  by  M.  Fustel  de 
Coulanges,  on  the  history  of  the  Franks  to  the  end  of  the  Carolingiau 
pei'iod.  In  these  there  is  to  be  found  as  marked,  and  apparently  a 
more  conscious  and  deliberate  exaggeration  in  the  opposite  direction,  by 
minimizing  the  German  and  emphasizing  the  Roman  influence  where- 
ever  possible.  While  very  evident  faults  of  process  make  every  con- 
clusion reached  by  M.  Fustel  subject  to  question,  and  while  a  very  large 
body  of  the  ablest  younger  scholars  of  France,  as  for  instance  M.  Monod, 
have  refused  to  follow  his  lead  upon  many  points,  his  books  are  still 
exceedingly  interesting  and  stimulating,  and  for  the  non-continental 
student  they  serve  to  restore  the  balance,  somewhat  seriously  distorted  by 
the  extreme  Germanizers,  and  to  emphasize  that  most  fundamental  fact 
that  the  new  society  was  formed  from  a  combination  of  both  German 
and  Roman  elements.  Upon  some  points,  as  for  example  the  early  his- 
tory of  the  feudal  system,  M.  Fustel,  while  not  differing  upon  any  im- 
portant detail  from  the  broader-minded  German  investigators,  like 
Georg  Waitz,  has,  however,  by  virtue  of  his  keen  constructive  insight, 
put  the  process  of  growth  in  much  clearer  light  than  ever  before. 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE       139 

the  great  tribes  of  the  East  Germans  were  in  motion. 
It  is  only  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  centmy  that  their  career 
really  begins,  and  then,  as  so  often  in  similar  cases,  it  is 
the  genius  of  one  man,  a  great  leader,  which  creates  the 
nation.  Eising  out  of  an  obscuidty  which  is  hartUy  light- 
ened by  the  abundant  mythology  which  afterward  col- 
lected about  him,  head  of  one  of  the  little  family  groups 
into  which  the  Franks  were  divided,  a  "county  king," 
Clovis — Hlodwig,  the  first  Louis  the  Grand — appears  as 
one  of  the  great  creative  spirits  who  give  a  new  direction  to 
the  currents  of  history.  The  main  traits  of  his  character 
and  work  stand  out  clearly  enough  despite  the  legendary 
embellishments  which  have  naturally  been  added.  Like 
very  many  others  of  his  kind,  utterly  without  a  conscience, 
hesitating  at  no  means  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  pur- 
pose, he  brought  about,  by  a  succession  of  treasons  and 
murders,  the  consolidation  of  the  whole  Frankish  stock 
under  his  personal  rule.  But  even  before  this  process  of 
consolidation  was  undei'taken,  he  had  begun  to  extend 
rapidly  the  territory  occupied  by  the  Franks.  Syagrius, 
the  son  of  a  former  Komau  governor,  had  gathered  into 
his  hands  the  remains  of  the  Roman  power  uoiih  of  the 
Loire,  and  ruled  a  considerable  territoi;y  there  which,  in 
the  general  breaking  up  of  things,  had  fallen  to  no  one 
else,  nominally  under  the  emperor,  really  as  a  little  in- 
dependent kingdom.  This  power  Clovis  overcame  in  the 
first  great  battle  of  his  history,  a.d.  486,  and  brought 
under  the  Frankish  dominion. 

With  the  territory  occupied  by  the  Franks,  and  that 
which  was  gradually  added  as  a  result  of  tliis  victory, 
Clovis  possessed  the  larger  part  of  northeastern  Gaul. 
To  the  south  of  him  lay  the  two  German  kingdoms  of  the 
Burgundians  and  the  Visigoths.  With  the  power  which 
he  had  gained  in  the  north  he  turned  against  them.  The 
Burgundians  were  fii-st  attacked,  and,  though  theii*  king- 


140  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

dom  was  not  incorporated  in  that  of  the  Franks  during 
Clo"vds's  life,  it  was  made  tributary  and  compelled  to  aid 
the  fmiher  extension  of  his  power.  A  few  years  later  the 
Visigoths  were  defeated  and  retired  to  Spain,  leaving  the 
lands  south  of  the  Loire  to  Clovis,  except  a  small  poi-tion 
in  the  southeast  which  Theodoric  the  Ostrogoth,  Cloyis's 
more  powerful  contemporary,  forced  him  to  abandon. 

Clovis  had  thus  made  subject  to  himself  nearly  the- 
whole  of  Roman  Gaul,  and  that,  too,  with  a  body  of 
Franks  originall}'^  very  small — perhaps  not  more  than 
three  thousand  men — and  though  later  reinforced,  still 
never  very  large  ;  certainly  the  Romanized  provincials 
were  in  a  very  large  majority,  especially  south  of  the 
Loire.  It  might  seem  inevitable  that  the  Teutonic  in- 
stitutions, represented  by  so  small  a  proportion  of  the 
population,  would  be  overwhelmed  and  disappear.  It 
was  in  reality,  however,  to  be  the  lot  of  the  Franks,  un- 
consciously and  by  the  force  of  circumstances,  to  do  that 
work  for  the  future  which  Theodoric  had,  with  clearer 
vision,  seen  to  be  necessary — the  Uniting  of  German  and 
Roman  into  a  common  whole.  But  if  this  was  to  be 
done,  it  was  vitally  necessary  that  the  Teutonic  side  of 
the  new  kmgdom.  should  be  kept  strong  enough  to  sur- 
vive the  danger  of  Romanization  to  which  it  was  ex- 
posed. 

This  was  secured  as  a  result  of  two  ver}"  important 
points  in  which  the  Frankish  conquest  differed  from  that 
made  b}^  any  other  German  people.  In  the  first  place, 
their  conquest  was  not  a  migration.  Instead  of  cutting 
themselves  off  completely  from  their  original  homes,  and 
settling  themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  much  more  numer- 
ous Roman  population,  with  only  scanty  and  accidental 
reinforcements  of  new  German  blood,  as  did  the  others, 
they  retained  permanently  their  original  German  land, 
and  the   parts   of  northeastern  Gaul  where  the  Roman 


THE  FRANKS   ATSTD   CHARLEMAGNE  141 

population  seems  to  have  disappeared  or  become  very 
small.  They  simply  spread  themsehes  out  from  their 
original  lands,  retaining  these  permanent^  as  a  constant 
source  of  fi'esh  German  life,  a  Teutonic  makeweight  to 
the  Koman  provinces  occui^ied. 

It  was  of  equal  importance,  in  the  second  x^lace,  that 
step  by  step  as  their  conquests  spread  over  Eoman 
lands,  they  extended  also,  in  the  opposite  direction,  into 
Germany  and  brought  in  peoples  who  had  not  been  per- 
manently affected  by  Eoman  influence.  These  German 
conquests  Clovis  began  by  his  incorporation  of  the  Ale- 
man  ni  and  of  the  eastern  Franks,  and  they  were  still  far- 
ther extended  by  his  successors.  The  pure,  or  nearly 
pure,  Roman  lands  of  the  west  were  kept  in  balance,  in 
their  influence  on  the  new  state,  by  the  pure  German 
lands  of  the  east. 

These  facts  were  of  gi-eat  importance  in  more  ways 
than  one.  Not  merely  was  it  essential  to  the  formation 
of  the  civilization  of  the  futm-e,  that  German  and  Eoman 
elements  should  both  be  preserved,  and  brought  together 
in  such  a  w^ay  that  they  should  unite  on  equal  terms  in  a 
new  common  whole,  but  also,  if  a  permanent  civilization 
was  to  be  constructed  for  the  futm-e  on  the  foundation  of 
the  Frankish  kingdom,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that 
the  invasions  should  cease.  So  long  as  every  new  at- 
tempt to  reconstnict  order  and  settled  govcrmnent  was 
liable  to  be  defeated  by  a  new  invasion,  and  chaos  likely 
to  be  introduced  again,  no  steps  could  be  taken  toward 
the  future.  This  danger  coiild  be  removed  only  by  the 
incorporation  of  Germany— the  source  of  the  invasions— 
in  the  new  common  life  A\hich  was  forming,,  and  by  the 
creation  of  a  political  and  military  power  strong  enough 
to  be  safe  from  outside  attack. 

The  incorporation  of  Germany  was  not  finished  until 
the  days  of  Charlemagne,  but  it  was,  long  before  that, 


142  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

complete  enougli  to  secure  tlie  Frankisli  state  against 
such  an  attack  as  that  by  which  it  had  itself  overthrown 
the  kingdoms  of  the  Burgundians  and  the  Alemauni,  and 
it  also  very  early  became  strong  enough  not  to  fear  the 
danger  before  which  Yandal  and  Ostrogoth  had  gone 
down,  and  on  the  field  of  Tours  it  was  able  to  turn  back 
the  invader  who  had  destroyed  the  Visigothic  state. 

It  was  this  great  political  and  military  power  which 
the  Franks  built  up  that  gave  them  the  opportunity  to 
do  the  work  which  every  other  German  tribe  failed  to 
accomplish.  It  was  because  they  kept  constantly  open 
the  sources  of  Teutonic  life  and  vigor  that  they  were 
able  to  use  the  opportunity  to  great  results. 
'  A  third  stej^  of  great  importance,  in  this  process  of 
union,  was  also  taken  by  Clovis.  One  institution,  pro- 
duced in  the  ancient  world  before  the  Germans  entered 
it,  had  continued  with  vigorous  life  and  wide  influence, 
indeed,  with  slowly  increasing  power,  through  all  the 
changes  of  this  chaotic  period.  It  was  to  be  in  the  fut- 
ure a  still  greater  power  and  to  exert  an  influence  even 
wider  and  more  permanent  than  that  of  the  Franks.  It 
was  also  one  of  the  most  important  channels  through 
which  the  ancient  civilization  passed  over  into  the  new. 
This  was  the  Roman  church.  It  was  to  be  the  great 
ecclesiastical  power  of  the  future.  It  was,  therefore, 
a  most  essential  question  whether  the  Franks,  who  were 
to  grow  on  their  side  into  the  great  political  power  of 
the  future,  should  do  so  in  alliance  with  this  other  power 
or  in  opposition  to  it. 

The  other  Germans  who  entered  the  empire,  except  the 
Saxons,  were  Christians,  but  they  had  been  converted 
to  that  form  of  Christianity  which  is  known  as  xAriau- 
ism.  This  was  a  Unitarian  belief  which  had  grown  up 
in  the  East  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  and 
which  continued  a  cause  of  theological  strife  for  two  or 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  143 

three  hundred  years.  Whatever  may  be  one's  personal 
belief  upon  the  theological  point,  the  fact  which  con- 
demns Western  Ariauism  in  the  sight  of  history,  and 
makes  its  fate  deserved,  is  that,  at  a  time  when  there  was 
the  utmost  need  that  the  shattered  fragments  of  the  em- 
pire should  be  held  together  in  some  way,  and  when  dis- 
organization was  most  dangerous,  it  stood  for  separation 
and  local  independence,  and  furnished  no  strong  bond 
of  unity  on  the  religious  side,  as  did  the  Catholic  faith, 
to  replace  that  political  unity  which  was  falling  to  pieces. 
Burgundian  and  Visigoth,  Vandal  and  Ostrogoth  and 
Lombard,  had  no  common  religious  organization  and 
recognized  no  primacy  in  the  Bishop  of  Home,  and 
though  they  tolerated  the  Catholicism  of  their  Roman 
subjects,  and  did  not  break  off  the  connection  of  these 
with  the  Koman  church,  that  result  would  certainly  have 
followed  had  they  grown  into  strong  and  permanent 
states,  still  Arian  in  faith.  The  continued  life  of  these 
nations  would  have  meant  not  merely  the  political,  but 
also  the  religious,  disintegration  of  Europe.  The  unity 
of  the  future,  in  a  Christian  •  commonwealth  of  nations, 
was  at  stake  in  the  triumph  of  the  Roman  chiu'ch  and 
the  Frankish  empire. 

This  question  Clovis  settled,  not  long  after  the  begin- 
ning of  his  career,  by  his  conversion  to  Catholic  Chi'is- 
tianity.  That  he  ever  became  a  real  Christian  seems  as 
unlikely  as  that  Constantine  did,  and  the  two  cases  ai'e 
in  many  ways  parallel.  That  political  considerations 
moved  him  we  can  only  guess,  but  they  seem  obvious, 
and  there  is  little  doubt  but  that  his  further  conquests  in 
Gaul  were  aided  by  the  fact  that  the  Franks  were  of  the 
same  -  faith  as  the  Roman  provincials,  while  the  Goths 
and  Burgundians  whom  he  attacked  were  Arians.  That 
he  could  have  had  any  conception  of  th(;  more  remote 
consequences  of  his  act,  is  impossible ;  but,  as  we  have 


144  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

seen,  these  were  the  most  important  of  its  results.  That 
the  Frankish  empire  could  have  been  formed  without 
this  alliance  is  probable.  It  is  possible,  also,  that  a 
common  church  organization  could  have  been  created  for 
all  its  parts,  but  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  such 
a  chm*ch  to  have  done  the  work — as  important  outside 
the  Frankish  bounds  as  within — which  the  Catholic 
Church  accomplished. 

In  these  three  ways,  therefore,  the  work  of  Clovis  was 
of  creative  influence  upon  the  future.  He  brought  to- 
gether the  Roman  and  the  German  upon  equal  terms, 
each  preserving  the  sources  of  his  strength,  to  form  a  new 
civilization.  He  founded  a  political  power  which  was  to 
unite  nearly  all  the  continent  in  itself,  and  to  bring  the 
period  of  the  invasions  to  an  end.  He  established  a 
close  alliance  between  the  two  great  controlling  forces  of 
the  futui"e,  the  two  emj)ires  which  continued  the  unity 
which  Rome  had  created,  the  political  empire  and  the 
ecclesiastical. 

It  may  seem  from  one  point  of  view  more  strange  that 
Roman  institutions  were  preserved  at  all  in  this  Frankish 
kingdom,  than  that  they  threatened  to  supersede  the 
German.  The  Frankish  occupation  of  Gaul  was  a  con- 
quest. It  seems  to  have  been  more  distinctly  a  conquest 
than  most  of  the  other  German  migrations — a  definite 
change  of  government  and  so  presumptively  of  institu- 
tions.* 

'  The  character  of  the  Frankish  settlement  is,  however,  a  subject  of 
dispute,  and,  tliough  probable,  it  is  not  entirely  certain  that  it  was  a 
conquest,  a  group  of  able  scholars  maintaining  that  there  was,  through 
the  whole  of  Clovis's  career,  a  conscious  recognition  of  the  Roman  su- 
premacy. It  is  of  interest  to  note  the  fact  that  after  the  most  important 
of  Clovis's  conquests  had  been  made,  the  emperor  sent  him  from  Con- 
stantinople the  consul's  title  and  insignia.  Clovis  seems  to  have  made 
some  use  of  this,  at  least  by  way  of  show,  but  it  could  hardly  have  been 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  145 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  tliat  government  was 
in  an  incomplete  stage  of  development  among  these  Ger- 
mans ;  if  well  advanced  in  some  directions  it  was  entirely 
wanting  in  others.  In  the  simpler  life  and  small  land  of 
their  earlier  history  few  difficult  problems  had  presented 
themselves,  and  these  had  been  met  by  simple  means. 
Now,  however,  with  the  necessity  of  ruling  a  wide  land 
and  a  large  population  of  diverse  race,  of  settling  com- 
plicated legal  questions,  and  of  providing  a  larger  rev- 
enue, there  was  a  demand  suddenly  put  upon  the  Ger- 
man state  for  an  enlargement  of  its  institutional  life 
which  no  rapidity  of  development  could  possibly  meet. 
The  result  was  natm-al.  Wherever  in  their  earlier  public 
life  the  Germans  had  developed  institutions  capable  of 
application  to  the  new  conditions,  these  were  continued 
in  the  new  states,  and  became  German  elements  in  the 
final  institutional  product.  An  extremely  important  ex- 
ample of  this  is  the  system  of  public  comis.  Wherever 
the  new  demand  was  of  a  sort  which  could  not  be  met  by 
anything  which  they  already  possessed,  it  was  the  sim- 
plest, and  easiest,  indeed  the  only  possible  thing  to  do, 
to  continue  in  operation  the  Koman  machinery  which 
they  found  existing.  So  the  administrative  system,  tax- 
ation, legal  and  extra  legal  customs  in  the  renting  of 
lands,  remained  Eoman.  These  are  but  single  examples 
on  either  side.  The  number  might  be  largely  increased, 
and  will  be,  in  some  cases  of  detail,  as  we  proceed. 

One  peculiar  idea  of  the  Germans  must  also  be  taken 
account  of  here,  as  of  influence  in  preserving  EomiUi 
practices,  that  idea  which  is  known,  somewhat  techni- 
cally, as  the  "personality  of  the  law."     The  German  was 

important  to  liim.     It  may  have  given  to  liis  position,  in  tlie  eyes  of 
some  of  his  s^^hjects,  a  legitimacy  wliich  it  did  not  have  before,  bnt  tliat 
it  added  anything  to  his  real  power  or  prerogatives,  or  made  his  position 
an 3'  more  secure,  cannot  be  supposed. 
10 


146  MEBIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

supposed  to  preserve  of  right  his  native  tribal  law  under 
Avhatever  government  he  might  live.  Alemanni,  Burgun- 
dians,  and  Lombards,  brought  into  the  Frankish  king- 
dom and  subject  to  its  king,  kept  their  old  law  and  did 
not  come  under  the  Frankish.  New  laws  concerning 
public  affairs  might  be  made,  and  be  in  force  in  all  the 
subject  lands,  but  in  private  law,  in  matters  between  man 
and  man,  the  old  tribal  customary  law  was  still  their  law. 
This  principle  was  applied  also  to  the  Komans.  The 
Roman  law  continued  to  be  the  law  of  the  Roman  sub- 
jects of  these  German  states,  at  least  for  a  very  consider- 
able time,  and  until  Roman  and  German  had  melted  into 
a  new  people  with  a  new  customary  law.  More  than  one 
of  these  German  states,  indeed,  issued  manuals  or  sum- 
maries of  the  Roman  law  for  the  use  of  their  subjects,  as 
they  had  done  of  their  oaati  German  law. 

Under  other  heads,  as  in  the  last  chapter  and  in  the 
chapter  on  feudalism,  are  to  be  seen  some  further  preser- 
vative forces  of  great  value  which  kept  the  Roman  ele- 
ments in  use  until  they  became  organic  parts  of  a  new 
civilization.  Those  mentioned  here  will  serve  to  show 
how  it  was  that,  even  if  the  Franks  entered  as  a  con- 
quering nation  and  consciously  put  a  new  government  in 
place  of  the  old,  large  portions  of  the  Roman  legal  and 
institutional  arrangements  remained  in  use. 

The  immediate  successors  of  Clovis  continued  his 
work.  At  one  time,  under  the  early  Merovingians,  the 
subject  territory  of  the  Frankish  state  almost  if  not  quite 
touched  the  Adriatic.  It  was  recognized  by  the  other 
western  states  as  the  strongest  of  them  all,  and  had  dip- 
lomatic relations  with  the  Roman  empire  in  the  East  on 
something  like  an  ecpial  footing. 

But  the  Merovingian  race  was  passionate  and  brutal. 
Its  history  is  full  of  treasons  and  murders  and  crimes 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE       147 

not  to  be  mentioned.  As  a  result  its  life  was  speedil}- 
exhausted,  and  it  sank,  physically  and  morally,  with 
fearful  rapidity,  its  princes  d^ing  like  old  men,  at  twenty 
years  of  age,  and  its  power  passing  into  other  hands. 

The  life  of  its  royal  family  was,  with  no  very  gi'eat  ex- 
aggeration, the  life  of  the  race.  This  Avas  also  violent 
and  s^jVage.  Crimes  were  frequent.  The  first  appeal  was 
usually  to  brute  force.  Life  and  property  were  not  se- 
cure, and  the  government  seemed  to  have  small  power  to 
enforce  order.'  Civil  war  raged  almost  without  ceasing. 
The  subject  nations  became  restless  and  by  degrees  more 
and  more  independent.  The  empire  of  the  Franks 
seemed  to  be  threatened  with  dissolution,  and  the  work 
which  Clo%4s  had  begun,  with  failure. 

Even  in  the  early  days  of  the  Merovingian  djuasty  a 
line  of  division  through  the  national  life  had  begim  to 
show  itself,  and  it  ran  ever  deeper  and  deeper  as  time 
went  on.  This  was  the  difference  between  the  west — 
Neustria — set  off  into  a  separate  kingdom  in  the  Merovin- 
gian family  di^dsions,  and  the  eastern  kingdom — Austra- 
sia.     In  the  west  the  Franks  were  few  and  rapidly  be- 

'  Gregory  of  Tours,  in  liis  History  of  the  Franks,  x.,  27,  gives  us  an 
interesting  example  of  the  way  in  which  the  Prankish  government 
sometimes  attempted  to  repress  disorders.  After  telling  how  a  private 
feud  arose  in  Tournay,  and  how  Queen  Fredegonda,  having  tried  in  vain 
to  persuade  the  parties  to  cease  their  quarrels  and  make  peace,  deter- 
mined at  last  to  bring  them  to  order  with  arms,  he  says:  "She  invited, 
in  fact,  these  three  men  to  a  great  feast,  and  made  them  sit  together 
upon  one  bench  ;  and  when  the  feast  had  continued  a  long  time,  and 
night  had  come,  and  the  tables  had  been  taken  away,  as  the  custom  of 
the  Franks  is,  the  guests  continued  sitting  on  the  benches  wliere  they 
had  been  seated.  And  they  drank  much  wine,  and  became  so  drunk 
that  their  attendants  got  drunk  also,  and  wont  to  sleep  in  any  corner  of 
the  house  where  they  happened  to  be.  Then  men  with  three  axes,  as 
directed  by  the  queen,  stationed  themselves  behind  these  three  men, 
and,  while  they  were  talking  with  one  another,  .  .  .  they  were  cut 
down."  Such  a  government  might  be  called  anarchy  tempered  with 
assassination. 


148  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOlSr 

coming  Romanized,  and  Roman  usages  prevailed.  The 
east  was  tliorouglily  Teutonic. 

There  is  also. another  difference  to  be  noticed,  fully  as 
important  as  the  contrast  and  possible  hostility  of  these 
two  incipient  nationalities.  Besides  tending  to  make  the 
king  more  powerful,  as  was  noticed  in  Chapter  V.,  the  con- 
quest Jiad  led  also,  as  a  secondary  result,  to  the  formation 
-of  a  more  powerful  aristocracy  than  had  existed  before, 
through  the  possession  of  land  and  office — of  greater  and 
more  permanent  sources  of  wealth.  This  new  nobility 
began  at  once  to  attack  the  royal  power,  and  to  strive  for 
independence.  In  the  western  kingdom,  as  a  result  of 
the  Roman  influence — the  analogy  and  the  continued  in- 
stitutions of  a  highly  centralized  government — the  royal 
power  was  strong.  In  the  east,  where  German  ideas  were 
prevalent,  the  strerigth  of  the  nobility  grew  more  rapidly. 

Out  of  these  two  sources  of  contention  grew  the  con- 
tinual civil  strifes  of  this  period.  They  seem  at  first 
sight  as  meaningless  for  history  as  the  battles  of  the 
stone  age.  But  taken  together  with  the  decay  of  the  Me- 
rovingian house,  they  gave  an  opportunity  for  thelam- 
ily  of  nobles,  who  were  destined  to  restore  the  royal 
power  and  to  reconstruct  the  Frankish  kingdom,  to  rise 
into  a  position  of  controlling  influence. 

This  family  had  its  house  possessions  in  Austrasia. 
In  that  kingdom,  in  the  reign  of  Dagobert  I.,  the  last  of 
the  strong  Merovingian  kings,  there  were  two  powerful 
nobles,  intrusted  with  positions  of  great  importance  by 
the  king,  Pippin  of  Landen,  and  Arnulf,  Bishop  of  Metz. 
After  the  death  of  Dagobert,  the  son  of  Pij)pin  made  a 
premature  attempt  to  seize  the  crown,  and  perished  with 
his  son,  and  the  male  line  of  Pippin  came  to  an  end. 
But  the  marriage  of  his  daughter  Avith  the  son  of  Arnulf 
united  the  possessions  and  power  of  the  two  families,  and 
the  son  of  this  marriage.  Pippin  of  Heristal,  soon  won 


THE  FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  149 

a  commanding  position  in  tlie  state,  tlipugli  not  with- 
out severe  struggles.  The  Merovingians  still  retained 
the  crown  as  kings  in  name,  but  the  real  control  of  af- 
fairs passed  into  the  hands  of  Pippin  and  of  his  descend- 
ants, the  Mayors  of  the  Palace. 

The  battle  of  Testry,  fought  in  687,  is  the  turning-point' 
of  this  part  of  Prankish  history.  In  it  Austrasia  tri- 
umphed over  Neustria,  and  the  organized  nobles  under 
Pippin  over  the  tendenxjy  toward  a  centralized  govern- 
ment. It  meant  that  the  Teutonic  elements  were  still  to 
retain  the  direction  of  affairs  in  the  reunited  kingdom, 
and  that  the  Eomanizing  influences,  which  bade  fair  to 
split  the  Prankish  nation  into  two  parts,  were  to  be  held 
back  for  some  generations  yet.  The  western  half  of  the 
land  was  to  be  brought  into  connection  once  more  with 
the  sources  of  Teutonic  life,  and  under  the  rule  of  a 
thorough  German  family. 

This  battle  was  in  form  a  triumph  of  the  aristocracy 
over  the  royal  power.  It  was  as  a  representative  of  the 
nobles,  and  by  their  aid,  that  the  new  house,  the  Caro- 
lingian,  had  secured  its  power.  But  the  nobles  speedily 
found  that  they  had  only  succeeded  in  putting  a  strong 
and  determined  master  in  the  place  of  a  powerless  one. 
The  stand-point  of  the  Carolingian  princes  was  changed 
at  once,  as  soon  as  they  were  in  a  position  to  rule  in  the 
name  of  the  Mero\'ingian  king. 

The  task  before  them  was  by  no  means  an  easy  one. 
Not  merely  had  the  nobles  grown  strong  in  the  state,  but 
the  confusion  of  the  last  part  of  the  Merovingian  poriotj 
had  enabled  many  of  them  to  assume  a  position  virtually 
independent  of  all  government  control.  These  were  the 
days  of  the  earliest  stage  of  feudalism,  and  the  political 
disorder— one  of  its  chief  causes — allowed  in  some  cases 
an  almost  complete  feudal  isolation.  A  considerable 
part  of  the  work  which  Pippin  of  Heristal,  and  his  sou 


150  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Charles  Martel,  liacl  to  do  was  to  break  the  power  of 
these  local  "  tyrants,"  as  Einhard  calls  them  in  his  "  Life 
of  Charlemagne,"  and  so  to  make  the  royal  power  more 
real. 

But  also  the  outlying  provinces,  especially  where  these 
represented  a  nationality  once  independent,  were  in  very 
doubtful  obedience.  Aquitania,  Alemannia,  Thuriugia, 
and  Bavaria  had  taken  advantage  of  the  dissensions 
among  the  Franks  to  resume  a  more  or  less  complete  in- 
dependence undi'r  dukes  of  theii-  own  race.  The  empire 
which  the  early  Merovingians  had  brought  together 
threatened  to  fall  to  pieces.  It  must  be  reconstructed, 
or  the  Franks  could  have  no  great  political  future.  The 
work  of  doing  this  was  a  long  one,  Charles  Martel 
hardly  more  than  began  it.  It  continued  through  the 
reign  of  his  son,  Pippin  the  Short,  and  on  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  reign  of  Charlemagne. 

Still  another  great  task  fell  to  the  early  Caroliugians. 
The  German  north  —  Frisians  and  Saxons  —  was  a  cease- 
less som'ce  of  danger.  These  peoples  were  continually 
attacking  the  borders,  striving  to  force  their  way  into 
the  south,  the  last  wave  of  the  invasions  from  Germany 
proper.  Charles  Martel  and  Pippin  maintained  a  vigor- 
ous defence,  but  they  could  establish  no  permanent  con- 
quests. The  Christian  missionaries,  mostly  Anglo-Sax- 
ons, who  attempted  to  convert  them,  met  with  no  better 
success,  and  it  proved  the  great  labor  of  Charlemagne's 
life  to  incorporate  them  with  the  Roman  and  Christian 
world. 

One  decisive  victory,  gained  by  Charles  Martel,  re- 
flected great  glory  on  his  family  and  helped  to  secure  its 
position.  The  Arab  invasion,  which  had  entered  Europe 
through  Spain,  in  711,  had  not  been  held  back  by  the 
Pyrenees.  The  Duke  of  Aquitania  was  not  strong  enough 
alone  to  resist  them,  and,  in  732,  an  army  of  them  had 


THE   FRANKS   AND    CHARLEMAGNE  151 

readied  the  ueighborliood  of  the  Loire,  a  tlionsand  miles 
north  of  Gibraltar.  There,  in  the  battle  of  Tours  or 
Poitiers,  the  infantry  of  the  Franks  withstood  the  at- 
tacks of  the  Ai'ab  horse,  and  turned  back  their  invasion. 
There  were  still  other  attacks  of  theirs  to  be  met  in  the 
south,  and  they  held  some  parts  of  Septimania  and  the 
Rhone  valley  for  many  years,  but  they  were  never  again 
able  to  penetrate  so  far  into  the  country,  and  the  danger 
that  Europe  would  be  overrun  by  Mohammedanism,  as 
Asia  and  Africa  had  been,  was  past,  so  far  at  least  as 
concerns  the  attack  from  the  west. 

The  time  of  Charles  Martel,  and  of  Pippin,  as  Mayor 
of  the  Palace,  was  a  time  of  reconstruction  for  the  Prank- 
ish state.  The  power  of  the  central  government  was  re- 
established. The  nobles  were  brought  into  obedience, 
and  the  elements  of  dissolution  held  in  check.  The 
subject  nationalities  were  compelled  to  give  up  the  inde- 
pendence which  they  were  resuming,  and  to  acknoAvledge 
the  supremacy  of  the  Franks  once  more.  The  church, 
which  had  suffered  A\dth  the  rest  of  the  state,  and  almost 
fallen  apart,  was  made  to  feel  the  effects  of  the  change 
also.  The  life  and  morals  of  the  clergy  were  reformed. 
The  councils,  its  legislative  machinery,  were  used  to 
serve  public  ends,  and  the  vast  estates  of  land,  which  it 
had  gathered  into  its  hands,  were  made  to  contribute  to 
the  support  of  the  army.  Pipj)in  called  Boniface,  the 
great  Anglo-Saxon  missionary  among  the  Germans,  to 
his  aid  in  the  work  of  reconstruction,  and,  although  the 
strong  Carolingian  princes  never  gave  up  their  direct 
control  of  the  church,  the  result  was  to  give  tlie  ])n]iacy 
a  greater  influence  in  the  Frankish  church  than  it  hail 
had  before. 

Now  follows  a  series  of  events  which  opens  a  new  and 
greater  epoch  in  Frankish  history. 


152  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Tlie  kingdom  of  tlie  Lombards  in  Italy,  though  quiet 
for  long  intervals,  was  never  wholly  satisfied  with  its  in- 
complete occupation  of  that  country.  As  soon  as  an 
ambitious  king  ascended  the  throne,  and  had  his  some- 
what unruly  people  in  hand,  he  was  very  apt  to  begin  to 
push  for  further  territory.  This  was  a  constant  menace 
to  the  papacy,  and  to  the  independence  of  the  little  state 
of  which  it  had  come  to  be  practically  the  sovereign.  It 
was  not  strong  enough  to  insure  its  own  safety,  though 
it  had  defended  itself  with  great  skill.  Its  natural  pro- 
tector would  have  been  the  emperor  at  Constantinople, 
still  nominal  sovereign  of  Rome  and  other  parts  of  Italy. 
But  Constantinople  was  far  away,  and  the  emperor  had 
many  more  immediate  interests  which  demanded  his 
attention.  Besides  this,  the  points  of  dispute  between 
the  Eastern  church  and  the  Eoman,  upon  the  worship  of 
images  and  other  topics,  which  were  one  day  to  make  a 
complete  and  hostile  separation  between  them,  had  al- 
ready begun  to  appear  and  to  create  ill-feeling.  The 
appeal  which  the  popes  made  for  protection  brought  them 
no  help,  and  they  had  only  one  resource  left.  This  was 
to  the  restored  Frankish  kingdom,  the  strongest  poHtical 
power  of  the  West. 

Gregory  II.  and  Gregory  III.  both  appealed  to  Charles 
Martel  to  come  to  their  assistance,  and  the  latter  sent  to 
him  the  keys  of  St.  Peter's  tomb.  But  Charles  did  not 
comply.  It  is  probable  that  he  had  still  too  serious 
work  at  home,  and  that  so  long  as  the  position  of  the 
Arabs  in  the  south  was  threatening,  and  plans  of  further 
invasion  on  their  part  not  improbable,  he  could  not  af- 
ford to  engage  in  hostilities  with  the  Lombards. 

But  Pippin  felt  himself  in  a  more  secure  position. 
There  was  also,  on  his  side,  a  strong  reason  for  a  close 
alliance  with  the  papacy.  The  plan  which  the  son  of 
the  first  Pippin  had  attempted  to  carry  out,  before  the 


THE   FRANKS    AND   CnARLEMAONE  153 

hold  of  his  family  on  the  state  Avas  secure  enough  to  war- 
rant it,  could  now  be  taken  up  again.  The  Franks  had 
been  accustomed,  for  more  than  sixty  years,  to  see  the 
Merovingian  kings  excluded  from  all  real  government, 
and  all  the  duties  of  the  royal  office  performed  by  the 
Carolingian  princes.  Almost  all  the  nobles  were  now 
also  the  vassals  of  Pippin,  and  the  leaders  of  the  church 
would  support  him.  To  set  aside  the  Mero\dngian  fam- 
ily, and  put  the  Carolingian  on  the  throne,  would  seem 
far  less  revolutionary  at  this  time  than  it  had  one  hun- 
dred years  earlier.  Still  a  sort  of  religious  feeling 
might  attach  itself  to  the  old  royal  family,  and  Pipi)in 
needed  all  the  support  which  he  could  get.  Accordingly 
the  first  move  toward  the  alliance  came  from  him,  and  an 
embassy  to  Rome,  sent  with  the  consent  of  the  Franks, 
laid  before  the  pope  the  question  whether  the  condition 
of  things  was  a  good  one  where  he  who  bore  the  title  of 
king  was  without  any  real  power.  The  answer  was  a 
satisfactory  one,  and  with  the  sanction  of  this  high  re- 
ligious authority,  the  last  Merovingian  king  disappeared 
in  the  cloister.  Pippin  was  elected  king  by  the  nobles 
and  people,  raised  on  their  shields  after  the  old  German 
fashion,  and,  by  a  new  ceremony,  the  bishops  conse- 
crated him  king  in  anointing  him  with  holy  oil.  This 
took  place  in  the  year  751. 

Almost  immediately  after  this  the  advance  of  the  Lom- 
bard king  became  so  threatening  that  the  pope  deter- 
mined to  go  in  person  to  beseech  the  new  king  of  the 
Franks  to  come  to  his  aid.  His  mission  was  successful. 
Pippin  went  back  w^ith  him  to  Italy,  and  compelled  the 
Lombards  to  abandon  their  conquests.  Two  years  later 
another  expedition  was  necessary,  as  the  Lombard  king 
was  threatening  Rome  again.  This  time,  in  755,  Pi})piu 
bestowed  on  the  pope  a  part  of  the  exarchate  of  RMVonnn, 
which  he  forced  the  Lombards  to  give   up,  and   thus 


154  MEDIEVAL   CIVILTZATTOX 

added  territory  on  the  Adriatic  to  that  around  Rome  of 
which  the  popes  had  abeady  made  themselves  the  virtual 
sovereigns.  The  wishes  of  the  emperor  at  Constantinople 
were  not  consulted  in  this  disposition  of  his  property, 
and,  without  any  regard  to  his  rights,  the  foundations  of 
the  temporal  principality  of  the  popes  were  securely  laid. 
These  events  were  of  as  wide  influence  upon  the  fut- 
ure of  the  Franks  as  upon  that  of  the  papacy.  They 
drew  still  closer  that  alliance  with  the  church  which  had 
always  been  a  characteristic  of  their  history.  They 
opened  the  way  to  a  new  conquest — that  of  Italy — of 
vital  necessity  in  their  consolidation  of  Europe  ;  and,  still 
more  important,  they  brought  them  into  direct  contact 
with  Rome,  and  so  made  likely  the  awakening  of  imperial 
ambitions  in  their  minds,  and  made  it  natural  for  others 
to  associate  with  them  those  ideas  of  a  revival  of  an  em- 
pire in  the  west  which  had  already  begun  to  stir  in  Italy.'  \ 

These  events  bring  us  to  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Great — Charlemagne — in  768.  f  A  very  general 
opinion  has  ranked  him  among  the  greatest  political  lead- 
ers of  history.  I  A  less  favorable  judgment,  however,  has 
not  been  wanting,  and  it  will,  perhaps,  afi"ord  us  the  best 
point  of  view  for  a  brief  sketch  of  his  reign  and  an  un- 
derstanding of  his  place  in  history,  if  we  try  to  ascei-tain 
upon  what  grounds  such  high  rank  can  be  assigned  him.^ 

It  is  necessary  to  remember,  however,  in  doing  so  that 
the  original  sources  which  treat  of  his  reign  give  us 
almost  no  statement  of  his  motives  or  plans.'     They  tell 

'  Bury  :   Luier  Roman  Empire,  Vol.  II.,  p.  443,  n.  1. 

^  See  the  collection  of  opinions  from  various  authors  in  Waitz,  DeutscJie 
Verfassungsgeschichtfi,  III. ,  pp  333-340.  His  own  conclusions  are  given, 
ibid.,  pp.  327-331.  Good  accounts  of  Charlemagne's  reiii'n,  in  English, 
are  Cutts,  Charlemaffiie,  and  Mombert,  History  of  GJuirles  the  Great. 

^  There  is  a  translation  of  Einhard"s -Eginhard's — Life  of  UJiarle- 
magne,  by  Turner,  in  Harper's  Half  Hour  Series. 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  155 

US  what  tilings  lie  did,  but  give  us  scarcely  the  slightest 
clew  to  the  reason  why  he  did  them,  or  what  ultimate 
purpose  he  had  in  view.  It  is  necessary  to  infer  the 
leading  ideas  of  his  policy  from  what  he  did  and  what  he 
left  undone.  Such  inference  is  certainly  proper,  and  may 
lead  to  sound  conclusions,  but  it  must  always  lack  the 
character  of  proof,  and  will  seem  to  some  much  less  con- 
clusive than  to  others.  To  myself,  the  theory  that  Charle- 
magne was  a  man  of  the  broadest  statesmanship  appears 
to  explain  the  facts  much  more  perfectly  than  any  other, 
though  one  must  certainly  hesitate  to  affirm  that  he  was 
conscious  to  the  full  of  all  the  bearings  of  his  policy 
which  we  may  seem  to  detect. 

But  such  a  consciousness  is  not  necessary ;  indeed,  it 
never  exists.  The  statesman  is  a  man  who  sees  the  needs 
of  his  own  time,  the  immediate  dangers  to  which  socicity 
is  exposed,  the  next  stej)  which  may  be  taken  in  advance, 
and,  seeing  this  work  which  is  to  be  done,  sees  also  how 
to  do  it,  knows  what  means  the  conditions  of  the  time 
will  allow  him  to  employ,  and  how  to  work  out  the  needed 
result  with  the  materials  and  tools  which  he  must  use. 
The  ultimate  historical  results  of  his  work,  and  even  the 
deeper  currents  of  the  age,  lie  cannot  see.  But  if  he 
truly  realizes  the  needs  and  opportunities  of  his  time, 
Avhicli  these  deepest  currents  have  created,  he  does  un- 
derstand them,  though  he  does  not  know  it,  and  he  works 
unconsciously  in  harmony  with  them. 

Our  question,  then,  is  this :  Were  the  things  which 
Charlemagne  did  wisely  adapted  to  meet  the  needs  and 
danger  of  the  time,  and  to  lead  the  way  to  a  better  fut- 
ure? Did  he  do  the  things  which  a  great  statesman 
ought  to  have  done  if  he  had  realized  the  task  demanded 
of  him  ? 

To  answer  this  question  we  must  first  determine,  as  we 
now  look  back  upon  the  age,  what  the  things  were  which 


156  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

most  of  all  needed  to  be  done  for  tlie  secure  unfolding 
of  civilization.  This  is  not  difficult  to  do.  The  ultimate 
outcome  of  the  middle  ages  was  to  be,  as  was  said  at  the 
beginning  of  our  study,  a  new  civilization  based  upon 
that  of  the  classic  nations,  with  the  new  Teutonic  race  as 
its  active  agent.  To  bring  about  a  condition  of  things 
which  would  allow  such  a  civilization  to  arise,  three  things 
must  be  accomplished  in  the  political  world.  In  the  first 
place,  the  invasions  must  be  brought  to  an  end.  No  se- 
cure and  productive  civilization  would  be  possible  so 
long  as  everything  was  likely  to  be  thrown  back  into  con- 
fusion by  a  new  settlement  of  barbarians  who  must  be 
absorbed  and  civdlized.  In  the  second  place,  the  Chris- 
tian nations  of  Europe  must  be  held  together  in  a  com- 
mon whole,  in  order  that  the  unity,  which  Home  had  es- 
tablished, and  which  is  the  foundation  of  Christendom, 
might  be  preserved.  Finally,  the  government  of  the  state 
must  be  strong  enough  to  keep  order  and  to  hold  in  check 
anarchy  and  the  brute  passions,  for  safety  of  person  and 
property  is  indispensable  to  any  advancing  civilization. 
All  these  w^ere  secured  in  some  way  before  modern  his- 
tory opened.  Had  it  been  possible  to  secure  them  per- 
manently in  the  ninth  century  it  might  have  saved  the 
world  some  centuries  of  time. 

We  have  then  these  three  things  which  the  statesman 
of  Charlemagne's  age,  if  he  had  been  gifted  with  the 
power  to  read  his  own  time  and  to  see  into  the  future, 
would  have  endeavored  to  accomplish  —  to  guard  his 
empire  against  future  invasion,  to  consolidate  Christian 
Europe,  and  to  establish  a  strong  central  government, 
preserving  order  throughout  the  whole. 

In  taking  up  for  examination  the  conquests  which  were 
made  by  Charlemagne,  it  seems  impossible  to  believe  that 
they  were  dictated  by  any  other  motive  than  the  desire 
to  render  permanent  the  power  which  the  Franks  had  es- 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  157 

tablislied.  That  liis  leading  motive  was  ambition,  the 
passion  of  conquering  for  the  sake  of  conquering,  appears 
entirely  irreconcilable  with  the  facts.  If  Charlemagne' 
had  looked  about  him  to  ascertain  from  what  sources  new 
invasions  might  come  to  endanger  the  Frankish  state, 
guided  also  by  the  experience  of  the  past,  so  far  as  he 
would  know  its  history  at  all  in  detail,  he  would  have 
been  likely  to  conclude  that  there  were  two  and  only  two 
sources  of  danger,  the  Arabs  of  Spain,  and  the  Saxons  of 
northern  Germany. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  was  no  danger  now  to  be 
feared  from  the  Ai'abs.  They  were  at  strife  among  them- 
selves, and  in  no  position  to  undertake  further  conquests, 
as  they  had  been  in  the  past,  and  would  be  again  in 
the  near  future.  Very  possibly  this  fact  explains  why 
Charlemagne  pushed  his  conquests  no  further  than  he 
did  in  that  direction,  but  satisfied  himself  with  a  few 
campaigns  and  a  little  strip  of  territory  in  northeastern 
Spain. 

The  Saxons  were  a  very  different  enemy.  For  more 
than  a  hundred  years  they  had  kept  up  almost  constant 
warfare  on  the  Frankish  borders,  as  earlier  still  the  Ger- 
mans had  along  the  Roman  frontiers.  If  any  new  Ger- 
man invasion  was  to  repeat  the  history  of  the  earlier 
one,  it  was  from  them  that  it  must  come.  Charlemagne 
certainly  acted  as  if  he  realized  this  fact.  They  were  a 
stubborn  foe,  but  his  determination  was  more  stubborn 
still.  There  was  apparently  far  less  to  be  gained  from 
them  than  from  Spain.  They  were  poor  and  uncivilized. 
Their  land  was  a  cold  and  hard  wilderness ;  indeed,  for 
purposes  of  mere  conquest,  it  would  seem  as  if  he  could 
have  gone  in  no  other  direction  so  difficult  and  so  little 
remunerative.  But  he  made  then-  subjugation  the  con- 
stant business  of  tliirt}^  years.  He  led  his  army  into 
their  land,   compelled   them   to  submit  and  to  become 


158  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Christians  in  name,  and  established  officers  and  regula- 
tions for  their  government.  But  hardly  had  he  turned 
his  back  when  his  work  was  all  undone,  Christianity 
thrown  off,  and  his  officers  driven  out.  "With  infinite 
patience  he  did  the  work  over  and  over  again,  generally 
with  wise  measures,  sometimes  mth  unwise,  as  in  the 
massacre  of  Verden,  but  in  the  end  he  succeeded.  They 
acknowledged  his  superiority,  submitted  to  his  govern- 
ment, and  accepted  Christianity.  In  no  very  long  time 
the  teachings  of  the  missionaries  had  replaced  their  com- 
pulsory faith  with  a  more  genuine  Christianity,  and  Avith- 
in  a  few  generations  they  looked  upon  him  as  the  foun- 
der, rather  than  the  destroyer,  of  their  national  existence, 
and  reckoned  him  afliong  the  great  apostles  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  Their  incorporation  in  the  Roman  Chris- 
tian system  of  things  was  complete,  and  the  invasions 
were  over  forever.  The  Hungarians  were  to  make  de- 
vastating inroads,  and  the  Northmen  conquered  England 
and  made  some  settlements  on  the  mainland,  but  within 
the  limits  of  Charlemagne's  empire  no  more  new  states 
could  be  founded  by  armies  of  invading  barbarians. 

In  the  way  of  consolidation,  Charlemagne  had  but 
little  more  to  do  than  to  put  the  finishing  touches  upon 
a  process  long  going  on  and  almost  completed  before  his 
day.  Central  and  southern  Germany,  and  the  Lombard 
state,  and  the  fringe  of  Greek  territory  of  which  he  took 
possession,  were  already  marked  out  for  Frankish  occu- 
pation before  his  reign  began,  and  in  no  direction,  except 
against  the  Saxons,  were  his  conquests  pushed  further 
than  to  give  him  security  from  attack,  as  against  the 
Slavs  and  Danes,  and  in  southern  Italy,  or  to  connect  his 
territories  with  one  another  and  round  them  into  a  com- 
pact whole,  as  in  the  Danube  valley. 

Of  the  importance  of  this  part  of  his  work  for  the  fut- 
ure, and  of  the  way  in  which  it  continued  the  work  of 


THE  FRANKS  AND  CHARLEMAGNE       159 

Rome,  he  could  have  had  no  conception.  ^\liat  he  was 
striving  to  do  was  to  render  this  Frankish  empire  secure 
and  permanent.  But  he  did  bring  together,  into  a  com- 
mon political  union,  nearly  all  the  peoples  which  were  to 
form  the  great  nations  of  the  future,  and  those  which  lay 
outside  his  immediate  rule  seem  to  have  looked  upon  him 
as  in  some  direct  way  their  head  also.' 

Finally,  in  no  part  of  his  work  does  the  political  ge- 
nius of  Charlemagne  appear  so  evident  as  in  the  meas- 
ures which  he  adopted  to  strengthen  the  power  of  the 
central  government.  It  had  been  the  great  weakness  of 
all  the  German  governments  of  earlier  generations  that 
they  did  not  make  their  power  felt  and  obeyed  in  every 
locality  in  the  state.  The  result  had  been  disorder  and 
confusion  and  the  growth  of  narrowing  local  interests  in 
the  place  of  general  and  national  ones.  Charlemagne's 
task,  as  it  presented  itself  to  him,  would  very  likely  have 
seemed  to  be  to  secure  obedience  and  order,  but  if  this 
could  have  been  done,  if  a  thoroughly  centralized  govern- 
ment could  have  been  established  and  made  permanent, 
it  would  have  meant  also  the  union  of  the  various  subject 
peoples  into  a  common  nationality,  and  a  rapidly  ad- 
vancing civilization. 

The  chief  executive  officer  of  the  early  Frankish  state 
was  the  count — the  (jraf — administering  in  the  name  of 
the  king  a  subdivision  of  the  state,  the  county.  After 
the  conquest  this  office  had  been  very  considerably 
developed  under  the  Eoman  influence,  and  its  duties 
widened,  especially  upon  the  judicial  side,  and  it  came 
to  be  theoretically  an  executive,  military,  and  judicial 
office,  not  ill  adapted  to  bring  the  central  government 
into  contact  with  all  parts  of  the  kingdom.  But  it  Avas 
natural  to  choose  for  the  office  some  large  landholder  of 
the  county,  who  would  have  local  interests  and  local  am- 
'See  Einliard's  Life  of  Charlemagne,  Chap.  XVI. 


160  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

bitious,  aucl,  though  the  Merovingian  kings  seem  to  have 
recognized  the  danger  of  this,  and  to  some  extent  to  have 
sought  to  avoid  it,  the  nobles,  whose  interests  lay  in  the 
opposite  direction,  were  in  the  main  successful  in  forcing 
this  policy  upon  them.  It  is  evident  that  the  preroga- 
tives of  the  count's  office  would  be  of  gi-eat  advantage  to 
the  noble  in  building  up  a  local  principality,  and  they 
were  very  commonly  used  for  this  purpose,  even  to  the 
extent  of  forcing  the  free  landholders  of  the  district  into 
dependent  or  vassal  relations  to  the  count.  This  turning 
of  the  office  into  a  local  power  greatly  impaired  its  value 
as  an  instrument  of  the  general  government,  and  there 
was  imperative  need  of  reformation  at  this  point  if  the 
state  was  really  to  control  its  subjects. 

Charlemagne  made  a  most  vigorous  effort  to  force  the 
counts  to  be  faithful  to  their  duties  as  agents  of  his 
government,  and  to  cease  the  abuse  of  their  powers  for 
private  ends.  He  certainly  did  bring  about  a  great 
change  in  these  respects,  but  that  his  success  was  not  so 
great  as  he  wished,  is  evident  from  the  frequent  denunci- 
ations of  the  abuse  of  their  powers  in  his  laws.  Even  if 
his  success  had  been  com23lete,  the  experience  of  the  past 
would  show  that  there  was  here  a  constant  danger  to  be 
guarded  against  and  that  the  state  needed  some  more 
efficient  means  of  overseeing  the  counts  and  of  holding 
them  strictly  to  their  duties.  The  practical  statesman- 
ship of  Charlemagne  seems  clear  in  the  arrangement 
which  he  de\dsed  for  this  purpose. 

Like  almost  every  other  case  of  the  making  of  new  in- 
stitutions in  history,  it  was  the  adaptation  of  an  earlier 
institution  to  a  new  and  wider  use.  Charlemagne  got  the 
suggestion  for  the  new  office  from  the  earlier  royal  missi 
— missi  dominici — messengers  sent  out  by  the  king  for 
special  purposes,  the  inspection  of  the  royal  domain 
lands  for  example.     This  office  he  gradually  adapted  to 


THE   FRANKS   AKD   CllAELEMAGXE  161 

the  new  purpose  be  had  iu  miud  until,  apparently  by  802, 
it  bad  become  a  most  effectiA^e  instrument  of  goyerument. 
The  details  of  the  arrangement  yary  greatly  at  different 
times,  but  in  general  they  seem  to  haye  been  like  this : 
The  empii-e  was  di^^.ded  into  large  districts,  or  circuits, 
containing  a  considerable  number  of  counties.  To  each 
of  these  districts  missi  were  sent  annually,  usually  two 
in  number,  different  men  each  year,  one  a  high  officer  of 
the  church  and  the  other  a  layman  of  rank.  On  coming 
to  theu'  district  they  diyided  it  into  subdistricts  accord- 
ing to  geographical  conyenieuce,  each  containing  a  num- 
ber of  counties.  In  each  of  these  subdiyisions  they 
held  an  assembly  four  times  in  their  year  of  office — in 
January,  April,  July,  and  October.  To  this  assembly 
must  come  all  the  counts  and  bishops  of  the  subdistricts, 
all  the  subordinate  officers  of  the  counties  and  bishoprics, 
and  all  the  yassals  of  the  king.  Representatiyes  of  the 
freemen  of  the  territory  were  selected  to  report  upon  the 
conduct  of  affairs  and  to  inquire  into  abuses,  and  any  of 
the  inhabitants  might  enter  complaint  before  the  missi 
concerning  any  special  act  of  oppression.  In  this  way 
the  administration  of  the  count,  and  of  the  bishop,  was 
kept  under  close  watch,  and  accusations  of  injustice  or 
misuse  of  power  on  their  part  were  quickly  heard  by  the 
central  goyerument.  The  missi  had  the  right  themselyes 
to  hear  appeals,  to  correct  abuses,  and  to  punish  the 
officers  for  disobedience  or  insubordination.  They  were 
supposed  to  represent  the  king,  and  to  have  the  rights 
which  he  would  haye  had  if  present  in  person,  but  espe- 
cially important  cases  seem  to  haye  been  referred  directly 
to  the  king  for  decision.  They  also  made  a  tour  of  in- 
spection through  the  different  counties  and  might  hold 
courts  in  each  of  them.  At  the  close  of  their  year  of 
service  they  drew  up  written  reports  to  the  king  of  the 
state  of  things  iu  their  circuits,  and  these  formed  the 
11 


162  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

basis  of  instructions  to  tlie  new  missi  of  the  following 
year. 

Sncli  an  office  was  certainly  very  wisely  adapted  to 
meet  the  difficulties  of  the  time,  to  hold  the  local  officers 
faithful  to  their  public  duties,  and  to  bring  the  power  of 
central  government  into  direct  contact  with  every  local- 
ity, and  make  it  respected  and  obeyed.'  The  best  com- 
ment upon  its  purpose  and  usefulness  is  the  fact  that,  as 
the  power  of  the  general  government  grew  weaker  imder 
the  successors  of  Charlemagne,  the  office  gradually  dis- 
appeared, leaving,  if  anything,  only  faint  traces  of  its 
former  existence.'^ 

For  the  defence  of  the  frontier — mark,  the  marches — 
the  office  of  graf  took  on  a  new  form,  which  developed  in 
time  into  a  new  feudal  rank — the  marhjraf,  marcJu'sus, 
marquis.  To  the  markgraf  was  assigned  a  much  larger 
territory  than  to  the  ordinary  count,  and  he  was  allowed 
to  exercise  much  more  extensive  power.  In  this  same 
period  appeared  also  the  vicecomes — the  viscount — who 
exercised  his  power  as  a  representative  of  the  count,  in 
his  absence,  or  when  he  held  more  than  one  county. 

Under  Charlemagne's  government  the  old' national  as- 

'  Under  the  Caroliugians  tlie  office  of  duke,  as  an  executive  and  mili- 
tary office  over  a  number  of  counties,  practically  disappeared,  and  the 
title  was  used  only  exceptionally.  The  reason  for  tliis  seems  to  have 
been,  the  way  in  which  the  office  had  been  connected,  in  the  later  Mero- 
vingian times,  with  the  aspirations  for  national  independence  among 
the  subject  peoples,  Bavarians  and  Aquitanians  for  example,  where  it 
had  allowed  the  development  of  what  was  really  a  royal  power.  The 
missi  in  Charlemagne's  government  served  the  same  purpose  that  the 
dukes  might  have  done,  though  in  a  much  better  way. 

^Brunner  still  holds  in  his  latest  work,  J)cuhc7ie  Hechtsr/escJiichie,  II., 
p  197,  to  the  opinion  expressed  in  his  earlier  book,  Entstefiii7ig  der 
Schwnrgenclite,  p.  154,  that  the  circuit  justices  of  England  (and  so 
naturally  of  the  United  States)  have  their  prototype  in  the  missi  of 
Charlemagne  through  the  Normans.  But  see  Stubbs,  Constitutional 
History  of  Ell (jland,  I.,  p.  441,  n.  2. 


THE   FRAKKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  163 

semblies  witli  legislative  rights  are  not  to  be  fonud.  As- 
semblies Avere  held  at  regular  intervals  which  were  like 
them  in  form,  but  if  there  is  anything  in  these  assemblies 
w^hich  may  be  taken  to  represent  the  people,  it  had  no  in- 
fluence upon  legislation.  Assemblies  of  the  nobles,  lay 
and  ecclesiastic,  sometimes  acting  together,  seem  to  have 
had  a  consulting  and  suggesting  influence,  but  the  legis- 
lative right  was  apparently  vested  in  the  king,  as  would 
naturally  be  the  case  in  a  strong  government  growing 
out  of  a  past  of  such  political  uncertainty,' 

Besides  the  institutions  of  government  given  special 
shape  by  Charlemagne,  two  other  facts  of  a  different 
sort,  but  quite  as  important,  indicate  the  character  of  his 
policy,  and  would  tend  to  produce  the  same  results — per- 
manence of  order  and  a  renewal  of  civilization.  They 
are  his  revival  of  schools  and  education  and  his  renewing 
of  the  title  of  Emperor  of  Rome  in  the  West. 

Of  Charlemagne's  revival  of  schools  we  know  unfor- 
tunately too  little  to  reconstruct  his  general  plan  or  to 
determine  how  wide  his  purpose  was."  We  know  there 
was  a  palace  school,  in  which  the  children  of  the  king 
were  taught  and  those  of  the  great  nobles  and  promising 
children  from  the  provinces,  and  where  boys  were  trained 
for  public  employment.  In  this  school  Alcuin  taught, 
who  had  been  educated  in  England,  and  we  know  that 
Charlemagne  sought  for  teachers  for  his  schools  wherever 

'Perhaps  no  part  of  Oharleraague's  political  activity  has  been  dis- 
cussed with  such  varying  opinions  as  his  legislation.  If  to  be  a  great 
lawgiver  means  to  forranlate  broad  principles  of  justice,  which  shall  be 
capable  of  wide  application  to  new  cases,  not  thought  of  at  the  time, 
then  he  was  not  a  great  Lawgiver.  His  legislation  is  rather  a  series  of 
special  laws  to  meet  immediate  cases,  as  they  came  up,  and  covering  a 
very  wide  range  of  interest,  but  it  was  not  creative  of  a  permanent  sys- 
tem of  law. 

''  See  Mullinger,  Srlioolx  of  Charles  tlie  Great ;  and  West,  Ahuiii  and 
the  Rise  of  the  Christian  Schools. 


164  MEDIEVAL   CIVILTZATIOIT 

else  auytliing  of  learniug  liad  remained,  as  in  northern 
Italy.  We  know  also  that  schools  were  to  be  maintained 
by  the  monasteries  and  cathedral  churches,  which  would 
naturally  be  of  an  intermediate  grade,  and  we  suspect, 
from  the  regulations  for  his  own  diocese  of  a  bishop  who 
was  also  employed  as  a  royal  missus,  that  there  was  an 
intention,  or  desire  at  least,  of  establishing  free  elemen- 
tary public  schools  in  each  parish,  to  be  taught  by  the 
parish  priest.  This  would  be  a  very  wise  and  well- 
organized  system  for  the  times,  if  it  really  was  what 
Charlemagne  had  in  mind,  and  if  it  could  have  been 
carried  into  effect. 

We  know  j)erhaps  more  as  to  the  actual  results  which 
followed  Charlemagne's  revival  of  schools  than  we  do  as 
to  the  actual  details  of  his  educational  system.  The 
legal  documents,  letters,  and  writings  of  the  next  gener- 
ation show  a  very  decided  improvement  in  style  and 
accuracy,  and  this  improvement  was  never  lost.'  The 
schools  themselves,  in  places  at  least,  continued  to  flour- 
ish even  during  the  dissolution  of  his  empire,  as  they 
had  not  before,  and  his  efforts  for  education  may  clear- 
ly be  reckoned  as  the  first  step  toward  the  revival  of 
learning. 

Some  of  the  original  sources  represent  that  the  act 
of  Pojje  Leo  III.,  in  placing  a  crown  upon  the  head  of 
Charlemagne  as  he  was  praying  in  St.  Peter's  on  Christ- 
mas-day of  the  year  800,  and  proclaiming  him  emperor 
of  Rome,  was  a  surprise  to  him  and  not  acceptable." 
But  the  plan  of  reviving  the  Empire  in  the  West  must 

'  There  is  a  touch  of  the  genuine  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  to  be  seen 
in  the  case  of  the  monk  who  takes  advantage  of  a  pilgrimage  to  Italy 
to  copy  inscriptions  with  exemplary  accuracy.  See  Wattenbach, 
Geschichisquellen,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  147  and  2()4.     (Fifth  edition.) 

'  See  Bryce,  Holy  Roman  Eininre,  Chap.  V.,  where  the  accounts  of 
three  annalists  are  translated. 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  165 

have  been  under  discussion;  there  are  indications  that  it 
had  been  thought  of  before  the  beginning  of  Charle- 
magne's reign,  and  the  pope  would  hardly  have  ventured 
upon  such  a  step  unless  he  had  known  that  it  was  in 
accordance  with  the  general  idea  of  the  king.  Charle- 
magne may  have  been  surprised  at  the  time  chosen,  and 
displeased  with  the  assumption  of  the  leading  part  in 
the  drama  by  the  pope,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
he  had  determined  upon  taking  the  title.  It  must  have 
seemed  to  every  one  at  the  time  the  perfectly  natural 
thing  to  do.  His  empire  corresponded  very  nearly  with 
the  western  half  of  the  Roman  empire,  more  nearly  than 
anything  which  had  existed  since.  They  had  believed 
all  along,  in  a  theoretical  way,  in  the  continuation  of  the 
Roman  empire  and  in  the  overlordship  of  the  emperor 
in  Constantinople  over  the  West.  Just  now  the  power  in 
the  East  was  in  the  hands  of  a  woman,  something  Avhicli 
the  people  of  the  West  regarded  as  especially  unwortliy 
and  impossible.  The  time  was  favorable  for  a  renewal 
of  the  title  in  Rome,  the  man  was  at  hand,  the  empire 
was  undeniably  reconstructed  in  territory  and  in  strength. 
They  may  not,  perhaps,  have  thought  of  themselves  ex- 
actl}^  as  Romans,  but  they  unquestionably  thought  of  the 
empire  as  a  direct  and  unbroken  continuation  of  that  of 
Augustus  and  Theodosius. 

To  Charlemagne  himself,  the  direct  gain  which  might 
come  from  a  revival  of  the  empire  may  have  been  as  im- 
portant a  consideration  as  the  glory  of  the  title  itself. 
The  Roman  empire  meant,  above  all  things  else,  perma- 
nence and  consolidation.  With  no  political  structure  of 
history  has  the  idea  of  eternal  endurance  connected  itself 
as  with  the  Roman  empire.  This  feeling  was  not  yet  en- 
tirely extinct,  as  is  e\ddent  from  the  way  in  which  this 
revival  was  thought  of  at  tlio  time  as  entirely  natural 
and  in  no  way  extraordinary.     It  would  be  a  great  help 


166  MEDIEVAL   CIVILTZATIOlSr 

to  the  permanence  of  the  empire  of  the  Franks  if  there 
could  be  identified  with  it  the  ideas  and  feelings  which 
belonged  to  the  Roman  empire.  Again,  the  only  govern- 
ment of  which  they  could  have  known  anything,  under 
which  the  diverse  nationalities,  which  had  been  brought 
together  by  the  conquests  of  the  Franks,  could  become 
,  equal  and  organic  parts  of  a  single  state,  was  the  Koman 
empire.  Charlemagne  might  be  recognized  as  their 
national  ruler  by  Franks  and  Lombards  and  Saxons  and 
Bavarians,  but  the  problem  of  his  day,  and  of  the  future, 
was  how  to  unite  these  all  together  into  a  single  whole, 
a  neAV  homogeneous  nationality,  in  which  the  old  race 
lines  should  have  disappeared.  The  Roman  empire 
might  do  this,  and  it  alone  could.  That  Charlemagne 
consciously  reasoned  about  the  matter  in  this  way  is 
hardly  possible.  It  is  altogether  probable,  however, 
that  he  did  believe  that  the  taking  of  the  title  would  be 
of  very  great  help  to  him  in  his  struggle  to  consolidate 
and  render  lasting  the  power  which  he  had  created. 

The  attempt  of  Charlemagne  was  a  failure.  His  reign 
was  not  long  enough  to  allow  such  a  unity  of  races,  and 
such  a  solidarity  of  law  and  government,  to  form  them- 
selves as  had  formed  under  Rome,  and  without  this  his 
work  could  not  be  permanent.  Even  if  his  own  life  could 
have  continued  through  the  whole  ninth  centmy,  it  is 
very  doubtful  whether  his  genius  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient to  hold  in  check  the  forces  of  separation  and  dis- 
order. They  certainly  were  too  strong  for  the  weaker 
men  who  succeeded  him,  and  his  eni]iire  fell  apart  and 
the  strong  government  which  he  had  established  was 
overpowered. 

Some  of  the  special  things  which  he  accomplished 
were  permanent  contributions  to  civilization,  like  the 
conquest  of  the  Saxons  and  the  revival  of  schools.    Many 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  167 

of  his  special  political  expedients  disappeared  with  the 
strong  government  which  they  had  helped  to  sustain,  as 
was  the  case  T\dth  the  missi.  But  there  was  a  profound 
and  permanent  influence  of  the  empire  and  good  govern- 
ment of  Charlemagne  upon  the  general  coiu'se  of  history, 
though  they  may  not  have  continued  themselves. 

He  had  created  and  sustained  for  a  generation  a  really 
powerful  central  government,  obeyed  and  respected  every- 
where, and  this  fact  was  not  forgotten  in  the  days  of 
feudal  confusion  and  anarchy  which  followed.  Men 
looked  back  to  it,  as  they  had  earlier  looked  back  upon 
the  Roman  empire,  as  an  age  when  things  were  as  they 
ought  to  be — a  kind  of  golden  age,  when  most  marvellous 
deeds  were  done,  to  be  told  of  in  poetry  and  romance. 
The  ideal  of  a  strong  king  and  a  real  government  was  so 
deeply  impressed  upon  the  time  that  feudalism  was  never 
able  to  destroy  it,  as  logically  it  should  have  done,  but 
itself  always  retained  the  character  which  Charlemagne 
had  been  the  chief  one  to  give  it,  of  a  constitutional  or- 
ganization for  the  state,  exercising  its  powers  and  rights 
as  delegated  to  it,  when  strictly  interpreted,  and  in  the 
name  of  a  general  government  which  theoretically  must 
continue  to  exist. 

His  empire  also  brought  together  for  a  time  all  the 
Christian  nations  of  the  continent  in  a  real  union.  The 
imity  which  Rome  had  established  had  been,  for  cen- 
turies past,  merely  theoretical.  There  was  no  objective 
fact  corresponding  to  it.  The  supremacy  of  the  emperor 
at  Constantinople  over  the  whole  empire  was  too  shadowy 
to  be  of  any  real  value  in  maintaining  even  the  idea  of 
unity.  The  church  had  formed  a  real  unity,  but  the 
political  world  had  none.  The  theory  itself  would  soon 
have  passed  out  of  the  minds  of  men  if  it  had  never 
taken  form  in  fact.  Charlemagne,  if  Ave  may  say  so,  made 
the  facts  conform  to  the  theory.     At  the  beginning  of 


168  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOiS^ 

the  period  of  most  complete  separation,  -vvben  the  feudal 
system  was  about  to  render  the  existence  even  of  state 
governments  practically  impossible,  and  to  divide  Europe 
into  the  smallest  of  fragments,  he  recreated,  for  a  gener- 
ation or  more,  the  Roman  unity  as  an  actual  fact,  and 
strengthened  the  belief  in  its  continued  existence,  as  the 
ideal  political  constitution  for  the  world.  His  revival  of 
the  empire  rendered  possible  its  second  revival,  on  a 
somewhat  different  basis,  by  the  kings  of  Germany,  and 
laid  the  foundation  for  that  ideal  structure,  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  alongside  the  Holy  Roman  Chui-ch — an 
ideal  which  grcAV  more  and  more  perfect  in  theory  as  the 
actual  empire  declined  in  power. 

But  if  the  empire  had  never  been  revived  a  second 
time  by  Otto  I.,  and  if  the  theory  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  had  never  been  developed,  the  real  unity  which 
Charlemagne  created  would  have  been  an  enormous  re- 
inforcement to  the  iniluence  of  the  church  in  holding  the 
nations  of  the  West  together  in  a  common  s^'stem,  and 
an  especially  decisive  aid  in  this  direction,  because,  with 
its  strong  unity  it  cut  the  age  of  confusion  and  separa- 
tion in  half,  and  held  the  disintegrating  forces  of  the 
time  in  check  in  their  full  career. 

Of  still  further  significance  is  the  fact  that  Charle- 
magne represented,  even  more  completely  than  Theodoric 
or  any  other  of  his  predecessors  had  done,  the  union  of 
German  and  Roman  elements  into  a  common  whole.  In 
Charlemagne  personally  and  in  his  government  they  are 
manifestly  united,  not  as  two  distinct  and  separate  sets 
of  things  brought  together  consciouslj'  and  with  inten- 
tion, and  held  together  by  an  artificial  arrangement,  but 
they  are  mingled  in  a  living  and  natural  union,  as  if 
no  one  were  conscious  of  any  difference  between  them. 
Within  a  short  time  at  least  after  his  death,  we  have  evi- 
dence in  language,  and  in  customary  law,  and  in  more  or 


THE   FRANKS   AND   CHARLEMAGNE  169 

less  clearly  felt  race  feeling,  tliat  the  same  sort  of  a  union 
had  taken  place  in  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  German 
had  not  been  raised  to  the  level  of  the  classic  ci^dliza- 
tioD.  The  knowledge  and  culture  lost  had  not  been  re- 
covered, but  enormous  progress  toward  this  recovery  had 
been  made  when  the  German  and  the  Eoman  had  melt- 
ed together  into  a  single  people,  and  begun  to  develop  a 
new  national  consciousness. 

The  unity,  which  Charlemagne  had  formed,  might  be 
broken  up,  the  empire  might  fall  again  into  abeyance,  the 
strong  government  disappear,  but  in  such  w^ays  as  these, 
which  have  been  indicated,  liis  work  was  permanent. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

AFTER    CHARLEMAGNE 

The  empire  of  Charlemagne  passed  at  first  into  the 
hands  of  his  son  Louis  and  its  formal  unity  was  pre- 
served. But  Louis  was  by  no  means  the  equal  of  his 
father  in  strength  and  decision,  and  the  control  of  affairs 
passed  by  degrees  out  of  his  hands  to  the  bishops  and 
the  great  nobles,  to  his  sons,  and  even  to  his  wife.  The 
elements  of  disunion,  repressed  by  Charlemagne,  began 
to  reappear  ;  but  unity  suffered  less  in  his  reign  than  the 
efficiency  of  the  central  government,  which  constantly  de- 
clined— the  missi  for  example  were  rendered  less  effective 
by  making  the  archbishop  permanently  one  of  the  missi 
for  his  archbishopric. 

On  the  death  of  Louis,  his  eldest  son  Lothaire  became 
emperor,  with  a  nominal  supremacy  over  his  two  broth- 
ers, who  had  received  subordinate  kingdoms.  A  civil 
war  between  the  brothers  resulted  in  the  treaty  of  Ver- 
dun, in  843,  a  rearrangement  of  territories  which  has 
probably  had  more  influence  on  later  times  than  any 
other  ever  made. 

By  this  partition  Lothaire  retained  the  title  of  em- 
peror, with  Italy  and  a  long,  narrow  strip  of  land  connect- 
ing Italy  with  the  North  Sea,  and  including  the  rivers 
Rhone  and  Rhine,  separating  in  this  way  the  subking- 
doms  of  his  two  brothers,  one  in  what  is  now  Germany, 
and  the   other  in  what  is  now  France,  and  bringing  his 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  171 

territory  through  its  whole  length  into  direct  contact 
with  theirs.  Nearly  or  quite  all  this  territory  came  to 
be  connected  at  a  later  time  with  the  empire,  as  held  by 
the  German  king,  but  it  was  bound-  to  Germany  by  only 
a  very  loose  tie,  and  in  it  easily  arose  the  semi-indepen- 
dent and  finally  independent  little  states  of  Europe,  Hol- 
land and  Belgium,  and  Switzerland  and  Savoy,  while  over 
other  fragments  of  it  France  and  Germany  have  been 
contending  through  nearly  all  later  history. 

On  the  death  of  the  grandsons  of  Charlemagne  their 
territories  were  still  further  divided,  and  the  double  pro- 
cess of  separation  and  of  the  destruction  of  the  central 
power  went  on  without  hinderance.  For  a  moment, 
almost  at  the  end  of  the  Carolingian  period,  the  empire 
was  reunited  under  Charles  the  Fat,  but  he  was  entirely 
without  power  or  capacit}^,  and  after  a  few  years  he  was 
deposed  (887),  and  the  territorial  unity  of  the  empire  was 
finally  destroyed. 

We  call  this  the  fall  of  the  Carolingian  empire,  and  it 
was  so  in  one  sense,  but  the  term  is  unfortunate  here  as 
elsewhere  in  history,  because  it  is  apt  to  imply  more  than 
is  meant.  It  must  not  be  regarded  as  in  any  sense  a  fall 
or  decline  in  civilization.  It  was  more  like  a  return  to 
conditions  which  had  prevailed  under  the  Merovingian 
kings.  These  conditions  had  been  dominated  and  con- 
trolled by  three  generations  of  remarl^able  princes,  who 
had  held  in  check  ^iccessfully  the  worst  tendencies  of 
the  time.  Now,  when  the  government  passed  into  the 
hands  of  ordinary  men,  these  conditions  began  to  prevail 
again,  but  they  prevailed  with  a  difference.  That  the 
net  result  of  the  Carolingian  empire  had  been  a  great 
gain  has  been  made  evident.  The  ideas  of  unity  and 
order  and  good  government  had  been  so  strengthened 
that  a  return  to  the  situation  of  things  in  Merovingian 


172  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOTSr 

times  could  never  be  complete,  and  those  conditions 
could  never  be  so  dangerous  as  formerly.  The  great 
Carolingian  princes  had  been  compelled  in  one  respect, 
indeed,  to  recognize  and  continue  these  conditions. 
They  had  been  obliged,  in  order  to  accomplish  their  ovm. 
purposes,  to  encourage  and  strengthen  the  growing  feudal 
institutions,  as  we  shall  see  later,  and  to  give  them  legal- 
ity. But  whatever  they  may  have  done  in  this  direction 
was  far  more  than  balanced  by  the  vigor  with  which  they 
subordinated  these  institutions  to  the  state.  Without 
their  aid  the  feudal  system  would  inevitably  have  devel- 
oped as  it  did,  though  perhaps  less  rapidly.  But  with- 
out their  strong  control  of  the  feudal  powers  in  their 
formative  period  the  idea  -that  these  j)Owers  were  exer- 
cised under  the  superior  rights  of  the  general  government 
might  easily  have  disappeared,  as  it  actually  did  here  and 
there. 

We  are  to  regard  this  age,  then,  as  continuing  the 
Merovingian,  but  with  decided  gains  over  that  period. 
On  the  sui-face,  however,  its  most  characteristic  feature 
is  the  decline  of  the  powers  which  the  three  great  Caro- 
lingians  had  built  up,  and  our  fii'st  task  is  to  ascertain 
the  immediate  causes  of  this  decline,  a  thing  not  difficult 
to  do. 

It  is  not  possible  to  attribute  this  decline,  as  we  are 
perhaps  at  first  tempted  to  do,  to  the  weakness  of  the 
rulers.  Some  of  them  were  certainly  men  of  inferior 
ability,  men  who  would  be  regarded'^'as  weak  sovereigns 
even  to-day,  when,  in  general,  a  stupid  king  or  an  insane 
one  is  as  good  as  any,  or  even  better.  But  the  most  of 
them  seem  to  have  been  men  at  least  of  ordinary  ability. 
It  was  a  time,  however,  when  a  man  of  ordinary  ability 
could  not  be  master  of  the  situation.  A  king,  in  order 
reall}'  to  govern  such  a  turbulent  society,  would  have  re- 
quired the  extraordinary  genius  of  a  Charlemagne,  if  not 


AFTER   CHAliLEMAGNE  173 

sometliing  more,  and  no  one  bad  that.  The  family  liad 
produced  about  as  many  generations  of  genius  as  any  in 
history,  and  it  was  rather  because  it  did  not  continue  to 
do  this  than  because  it  sank  below  the  level  of  average 
men  that  it  proved  unequal  to  its  task. 

Nor  can  the  cause  be  found  in  those  partitions  of  ter- 
ritory between  the  members  of  the  family  which  are  so 
freqnent  during  the  period.  The  old  Frankish  notion  of 
equal  division  among  the  heirs  apparently  could  not  be 
shaken  off  by  the  Carolingians,  and  subdivision  followed 
subdivision  to  the  end  of  the  period.  This,  no  doubt, 
weakened  the  idea  of  unity,  and  occasionally  aided  the 
deej)er  causes  of  separation,  but  it  must  not  be  regarded 
in  itself  as  a  very  efficient  force  in  that  direction.  Had 
the  general  conditions  been  more  favorable,  such  parti- 
tions might  have  gone  further  than  they  did  without 
serious  consequences,  and,  indeed,  they  might  have  been 
of  assistance  to  the  kings  in  maintaining  a  real  control 
of  affiiirs  by  reducing  the  size  of  the  territory  to  be  con- 
trolled. 

More  serious  than  these,  as  intensifying  the  general 
conditions  with  which  a  government  had  to  contend,  were 
the  severe  attacks  which  were  made  on  all  the  boundaries 
of  the  empire  during  this  age.  Saracens,  Hungarians, 
and  Northmen  were  trying  to  force  their  way  in  from 
every  direction.  In  the  Carolingian  period  proper  the 
most  dangerous  of  these  attacks  was  that  of  the  North- 
men.' FolloAving  exactly  tlie  methods  of  the  earlier 
Saxons,  they  appeared  without  warning  upon  the  coast 
or  up  the  rivers  with  their  swift  boats,  collected  what 
plunder  they  could  in  a  sudden  raid  inland,  and  were  off 
before  resistance  could  be  organized.  The  great  rivers 
of  Gaul  opened  to  them  the  heart  of  the  country,  and  the 

'  On  the  Northmen,  see  Keary,  The  Vikings  in  Weste-rn  Chriitendom  ; 
and  Johnson,  7'he  Normans  in  Europe. 


174  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

distance  to  wliicli  they  ascended  tliem  shows  most  clearly 
how  little  general  organization  there  was,  and  how  entirely 
each  locality  was  thrown  npon  its  own  resources  for  pro- 
tection. This  absence  of  a  general  system  of  defence, 
this  necessity  which  was  placed  npon  each  localit}'  of 
looking  out  for  its  own  protection  in  the  face  of  a  con- 
stantly menacing  danger,  is  a  fact  of  primary  importance 
at  this  time.  It  greatly  strengthened  those  institutions, 
which  organized  the  means  of  private  and  local  defence, 
institutions  which  similar  conditions  had  produced  in 
earlier  times,  and  Avhich  had  continued  their  development 
even  under  Charlemagne. 

With  this  fact — the  fact  that  these  institutions  had  now 
become  very  strong  and  gro^vn  into  a  great  general  or- 
ganization, the  feudal  system,  so  strong  that  it  Avas  no 
longer  possible  to  control  its  members  or  to  prevent  their 
exercise  pf  royal  prerogatives — we  have  reached  the 
deepest  and  most  effective  cause  of  the  fall  of  the  Caro- 
lingian  power. 

The  feudal  system  was  itself  an  offspring  of  the  pre- 
vailing conditions  and  gave  expression  to  them.  Whether 
or  not  the  later  Carolingians  would  have  been  able  to 
maintain  an  effective  government  if  the  feudal  system 
had  not  been  in  the  way  to  prevent,  certain  it  is  that  this 
system  had  taken  its  beginning  in  a  time  when  for  one 
cause  or  another  an  effective  government  had  not  been 
maintained,  in  the  last  days  of  the  empire  and  in  the 
Merovingian  period.  Since  then  nothing  had  occun-ed 
to  check  its  development,  though  Charlemagne  had  been 
able  to  prevent  any  evil  results  from  it  in  his  own  time. 
It  had  now  reached  a  point  of  development  which  made 
it  in  itself  an  active  factor  in  the  state  independent  of  the 
conditions  which  had  brought  it  into  existence.  It  had 
established  itself  on  firm  foundations.  It  had  absorbed 
to    some  extent  already,  and  Avas   absorbing  more  and 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  -  175 

more,  the  functions,  powers,  and  rights  of  the  central 
government.  It  had  produced  a  body  of  men  secure  in 
their  position,  able  to  dictate  terms  to  the  monarch  at 
critical  moments  as  the  price  of  their  assistance,'  and 
able  to  beat  off  the  attacks  of  the  Northmen  where  the 
state  failed  to  do  its  duty.  It  had  built  up,  in  a  word, 
little  principalities  everywhere  which  usurped  for  the  lo- 
cality the  place  of  the  state  and  divided  the  territory  into 
small  fragments  tending  toward  complete  independence. 

So  while  the  difficulty  of  intercommunication  made  it 
hard  to  maintain  a  real  control  of  affairs  at  a  distance, 
and  while  the  ignorance  and  barbarism  of  the  time  made 
impossible  those  general  ideas  and  common  interests  and 
feelings  which  are  the  foundation  of  a  national  govern- 
ment, the  feudal  system  deprived  the  state  of  its  organs 
of  action.  Its  executive  offices,  its  judicial  system,  its 
legislation,  its  income,  and  its  army  all  passed  into  the 
hands  of  private  individuals,  and  were  made  use  of  by 
them,  theoretically,  as  representing  the  state,  but  in  real- 
ity beyond  its  control.  The  king  was  practically  shut 
up  to  whatever  power  the  feudal  lords  might  be  willing 
to  concede  to  him  at  the  moment. 

The  origin  of  this  system  and  the  state  of  things  re- 
sulting from  it  will  be  discussed  in  detail  in  the  next 
chapter.  Here  it  is  necessary  to  fix  in  mind  the  fact 
that  the  Carolingian  family,  which  had  done  not  a  little 
to  give  it  definite  form  and  position  in  the  state,  fell  its 
victim  and  lost  the  throne  because  it  could  no  longer 
control  its  own.  vassals. 

^  The  most  familiar  instance  of  this  is  the  famous  capitulary  of 
Kiersy,  obtained  from  Charles  the  Bald,  in  877.  This  was  not,  as  has 
sometimes  been  said,  the  legal  recognition  of  a  hereditary  right  to  bene- 
fices, but  it  was  an  agreement  on  the  part  of  the  king  to  recognize  such 
a  right  for  the  special  occasion,  showing,  however,  the  existence  of  a 
strong  tendency  to  turn  offices  and  fiefs  into  hereditary  possessions. 


176  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

But  tlie  declining  power  of  the  Carolingian  family,  and 
the  fact  that  even  in  the  small  states  into  which  their  great 
empire  had  separated  they  conld  not  really  govern,  is  not 
the  only  fact  of  importance  which  this  period  signifies  in 
the  political  history  of  the  world.  It  was  not  an  age  of 
chaos  alone.  In  the  breaking  up  of  the  Carolingian  empire 
the  European  nations  as  they  exist  to-day  first  took  shape. 

How  much  of  real  national  consciousness  there  was  in 
the  states  that  separated  from  one  another  at  this  time  it 
is  not  easy  to  say.  There  is  danger  that  we  may  read 
into  that  earlier  time,  when  it  could  hardly  have  existed, 
the  idea  of  national  feeling  which  we  now  have.  Cer- 
tainly patriotism  and  a  feeling  of  race  unity  and  of  na- 
tional pride  do  not  appear  as  positive  forces  in  history, 
whose  workings  can  be  clearly  traced,  till  near  the  end 
of  the  middle  ages. 

There  is  evidence,  however,  that  there  was  at  least 
some  slight  national  consciousness  at  this  time  ;  that  the 
people  in  one  of  these  new  states  began  to  distinguish 
themselves  from  those  in  another,  and,  however  much 
they  might  still  be  divided  within  the  state,  to  look  upon 
themselves  as  more  closely  related  to  one  another  than  to 
the  people  of  another  state.  The  new  languages  had  be- 
gun to  form  themselves — a  clear  proof  of  the  melting  of 
Romans  and  Germans  into  a  common  people — and  these 
would  help  to  form  the  idea  of  national  distinctions. 
Common  names  for  the  peoj^le  of  the  whole  state  seem 
to  have  come  into  use  about  this  time.  The  church  of 
each  state  had  its  own  national  organization,  and  this 
furnished  one  of  the  most  powerful  influences  of  the 
time,  both  in  the  formation  of  the  new  state  governments 
and  in  the  groA\i;h  of  a  real  national  unity. 

But  whatever  may  be  true  of  the  formation  of  a  national 
consciousness  at  this  time — and  when  the  most  is  said  it 
must  have  been  very  faint — the  modern  nations  did  secure 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  177 

lEL  tliis  period  tlieir  geograpliical  outlines  very  mucli  as 
they  exist  to-day,  and  separate  political  organizations 
were  formed,  corresponding  to  these  territories  and  unit- 
ing them — however  loosely — still  uniting  them  into  a 
single  state.  These  political  organizations  have  devel- 
oped into  the  modern  governments,  and  within  the  geo- 
graphical limits  thus  secured  the  feeling  of  national  unity, 
and  patriotism  grew  up  in  the  course  of  time. 

It  was  in  Germany  that  the  Carolingian  family  was 
first  permanently  abandoned  for  a  national  dynasty. 
Arnulf,  who  was  the  last  Carolingian  who  really  ruled  in 
Germany,  was  a  man  of  energy,  and  the  ten  years  and 
more  of  his  reign,  from  887  to  899,  was  a  continual 
struggle  against  the  Northmen  and  Slavs.  Against  these 
external  enemies  he  was  successful,  but  he  did  nothing 
to  prevent — in  some  cases  he  aided — the  growth  of  the 
locar  feudal  dominions  which  were  as  serious  a  danger. 
After  him  came  a  dozen  years  of  minority  mle,  when 
naturally  the  local  powers  grew  rapidly,  and  the  devastat- 
ing invasions  of  the  Hungarians,  which  began  within  a 
year  or  two  after  the  death  of  Arnulf,  strengthened  this 
tendency  by  increasing  the  confusion  and  insecurity  with 
which  the  general  government  could  not  cope. 

The  feudal  system  did  not  reach  its  maturity  quite  so 
early  in  Germany  as  in  France,  not  having  grown  up 
naturally  there  but  being  rather  introduced  from  with- 
out. But  the  conditions  which  favored  its  growth  were 
like  those  in  France,  and  the  results  in  the  end  were  the 
same.  The  general  insecurity  of  the  times,  the  constant 
need  of  protection,  the  weakness  or  the  distance  of  the 
central  government,  and  perhaps  the  lack  of  any  strong 
conception  of  a  national  unity,  enabled  the  strong  man 
of  the  locality  to  found  a  little  state  within  the  state,  and 
to  extend  his  power,  if  circumstances  especially  favored 
him,  over  a  large  territory. 
12 


178  ^MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  old  tribal  diflferences  wliicli  still  existed  among  tlie 
Germans,  notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  of  the  Caro- 
lingians  to  obliterate  them,  came  to  the  aid  of  these  little 
substates — it  would  be  more  accurate  perhaps  to  say 
that  these  differences  were  the  foundation  on  which  they 
were  fii'st  built.  The  Carolingians  had  abolished  the 
old  ducal  office  which  represented  a  tribal  royal  power, 
and  they  had  endeavored  to  prevent  any  continuance  of 
the  tribal  life  in  the  arrangements  which  they  made  for 
local  government.  During  the  time  of  their  decline, 
however,  the  old  tribal  consciousness  had  begun  to  re- 
assert itself,  and  the  ducal  office  to  reappear,  at  first 
without  any  recognition  or  legal  right,  but  as  existing  by 
force  of  circumstances  and  by  common  consent. 

Aided  by  circumstances  of  this  sort,  a  family  having 
its  original  seat  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Saxon  land,  in 
a  region  exposed  at  once  to  the  attacks  of  the  Danes  and 
of  the  Slavs,  had  gradually  extended  its  power,  by  the 
skill  of  its  leadership  and  the  bravery  of  its  defence,  over 
the  whole  tribe  of  the  Saxons,  and  finally  over  the  Thu- 
ringians  also,  and  created  a  dominion  which,  under  the 
ducal  name,  was  really  a  little  kingdom.  Another  fam- 
ily in  Franconia — ^the  land  of  the  east  Franks — had 
risen  in  a  similar  way,  aided  by  the  favor  of  King  Amulf , 
to  a  power  almost  as  great,  but  it  had  made  good  its  posi- 
tion only  after  a  severe  struggle  with  dangerous  rivals. 
In  Suabia  and  Bavaria  the  tribal  spirit,  also  revived  and 
raised  local  leaders  to  the  position  of  practically  inde- 
pendent dukes.  The  feudal  system  was  spreading  very 
rapidly  throughout  Germany  at  this  time,  and  its  forms 
greatly  helped  on  the  rise  of  these  local  dynasties ;  but 
it  is  important  to  notice,  as  has  been  suggested,  that 
these  little  states  into  which  the  east  Frankish  kingdom 
threatened  to  separate  at  the  moment  of  the  extinction 
of  the  Carolingian  family  there,  were  based  at  the  outset 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGN-E  179 

rather  on  tlie  old  tribal  differences  than  on  feudal  con- 
stnictions. 

It  was  the  influence  of  the  church  of  Germany — a 
united  organization,  finding  all  its  interests  involved  in 
the  continuance  of  a  united  political  government — com- 
bined perhaps  with  a  deep  impression  which  the  unity 
created  by  Charlemagne  had  made,  and  very  possibly 
also  aided  by  an  incipient  national  consciousness,  Avhich 
prevented  this  threatened  separation  from  being  com- 
pletely realized,  and  formed  a  new  national  government 
in  the  place  of  the  one  which  had  disappeared. 

On  the  death  of  the  last  Carolingian,  an  assembly 
somewhat  national  in  character  came  together  to  choose 
a  new  king.  They  tm-ned  naturally  first  to  the  Saxon 
duke  Otto,  the  most  powerful  man  in  Germany,  but  he 
was  now  old  and  was  not  willing  to  undertake  the  bur- 
dens 'of  the  new  office.  By  his  influence  Konrad,  the 
duke  of  the  eastern  Franks,  was  elected  king.  This  elec- 
tion was  not  made  in  forgetfuluess  of  the  rights  of  the 
Carolingians,  whose  representatives  were  still  to  be  found 
west  of  the  Rhine.  Their  claims  were  kept  in  mind,  and 
it  was  thought  indeed  to  be  something  in  favor  of 
Konrad  that  he  was  descended  from  a  daughter  of  Louis 
the  Pious.  But  there  seems  to  have  been  no  serious 
movement  in  favor  of  the  old  house,  nor  any  feeling  that 
it  could  adequately  meet  the  needs  and  interests  of  the 
times. 

Konrad  was  a  brave  and  earnest  man  who  had  a  high 
conception  of  the  duties  and  rights  of  his  office  and 
strove  manfully  to  realize  that  conception.  But  the  dif- 
ficulties were  too  great  for  him  to  overcome.  He  did  not 
have  in  his  own  local  power,  and  in  the  tribe  of  the 
Franks,  which  must  be  his  main  reliance  in  establishing 
a  real  government,  strength  enough  to  force  the  other 
local  and  tribal  powers  into  obedience,  and  his  reign  was 


180  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

a  failure  in  tliis  respect.  It  is  told  ns  tliat  at  liis  deatli 
lie  recognized  tliis  fact,  and  saw  tliat  if  a  national  govern- 
ment was  to  be  made  eflfective  it  could  be  done  only  by  bis 
great  rival  whose  personal  power  was  so  mucb  stronger 
than  his  own,  by  the  duke  of  the  Saxons.  Following  his 
advice,  the  Germans  passed  over  the  Franconian  family 
and  elected  Henry  the  Saxon  king,  and  from  his  acces- 
sion in  918,  the  process  of  forming  a  national  government 
for  Germany  really  begins. 

Of  this  national  government  Henry  hardly  more  than 
lays  the  foundation,  but  he  does  this  with  great  skill  and 
with  a  statesman's  recognition  of  the  things  that  were 
possible  in  the  circumstances.  He  brings  the  dukes  to  a 
formal  obedience  and  to  a  recognition  of  the  kingship, 
but  he  does  this  by  diplomatic  tact  rather  than  by  force 
of  arms,  and  he  leaves  to  them  almost  complete  and  in- 
dependent local  control.  It  was  too  early  yet  to  break 
their  power  in  this  particular.  He  organizes  the  national 
forces  for  a  most  successful  resistance  to  the  Hungarians, 
founds  many  fortified  posts  in  north  and  east  Germany 
which  grow  later  into  cities,  leads  the  Saxons  on  rapidly 
in  the  line  of  development  begun  for  them  by  Charle- 
magne, opens  again  the  struggle  with  the  Slavs  for  the 
valley  of  the  Elbe,  and  finally  draws  closer  the  alliance 
between  the  royal  power  which  is  forming  and  the  church 
which  can  give  it  so  great  assistance. 

It  was  by  no  means  the  least  of  his  successes  that 
he  secured  the  quiet  and  undisputed  succession  of  his  son 
Otto  to  the  throne.  Otto  does  not  seem  to  have  had  his 
father's  diplomatic  ability,  but  he  was  a  man  of  strong 
determination  and  quick  action,  and  he  built  rapidly  on 
the  foundations  which  his  father  had  laid.  The  dukes 
and  the  semi-independent  tribes  seem  to  have  recognized 
the  fact  that  it  was  a  life-and-death  struggle  for  them, 
and  they  broke  into  open  rebellion  almost  immediately 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  181 

after  his  accession.  The  victory  over  this  open  resist- 
ance, which  Otto  everywhere  gained,  enabled  him  to  go 
further  than  his  father  had  ventured.  He  deposed  the 
old  ducal  families  from  their  half  royal  position,  set  in 
their  place  devoted  friends  of  his  own,  and  made  the 
duke  once  more,  if  not  completely,  yet  more  nearly,  an 
officer  of  the  state.  Finally,  he  put  beside  the  duke  the 
lifalzgraf,  or  palatine  count,  to  be  a  check  on  the  ducal 
power  and  to  administer  the  royal  domain  lands  scat- 
tered through  the  duchy,  and  so  not  merely  deprived  the 
duke  of  one  source  of  his  power  but  also  established  an 
important  means  of  direct  connection  between  the  central 
government  and  the  locality.  It  was  the  fu'st  step,  and  a 
long  one,  toward  a  really  consolidated  government  for 
the  nation.  If  this  policy  could  have  been  continued  for 
a  generation  or  two  without  interruption  the  work  would 
have  been  done  and  a  real  state  created  corresponding 
to  the  language  and  the  race.  But  this  was  not  destined 
to  be. 

Hardly  was  Otto  master  of  things  at  home  when  he 
was  called  upon  to  go  to  Italy  and  right  wrongs  which 
had  been  committed  there,  and  he  could  not  resist  the 
temptation.  The  dream  of  the  empire  still  lived  in  the 
German  mind,  and  Otto  Avas  perhaps  more  ready  to  go 
than  the  Capetian  princes  of  France  were  to  embrace 
similar  opportunities  offered  to  them,  because  his  power 
at  home  was  so  much  greater  than  theirs. 

In  Italy  no  one  of  the  local  powers  into  which  the 
country  had  separated,  there  as  everywhere  else  on  tlio 
fall  of  the  Carolingian  empire,  had  been  able  to  gain 
sufficient  strength  permanently  to  overcome  the  others, 
and  to  form  the  foundation  of  a  united  government  as  it 
had  been  the  fortune  of  some  to  do  in  France  and  in 
Germany.  The  existence  of  the  joapacy  at  the  head  of 
a  little  state  in  central  Italy,  strengthened  by  rights  of 


182  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

ecclesiastical  rule  wliicli  extended  over  Europe,  had  fur- 
ther comj)licated  the  situation,  and  Italy  had  been  the 
scene  of  more  constant  civil  strife  than  the  other  coun- 
tries, and  with  far  less  meaning  or  result.  It  was  conse- 
quently very  easy  for  a  foreign  prince,  not  dependent  upon 
the  country  for  his  resources,  to  exact  at  least  a  formal 
acloiowledgment  of  his  right  to  govern.  In  a  first  expe- 
dition Otto  compelled  a  recognition  of  his  right  to  settle 
disputed  points  and  assumed  the  title  of  King  of  Lom- 
bardy.  In  a  second,  in  962,  he  was  crowned  Emperor  of 
Home. 

This  might  seem  to  him,  and  to  the  men  of  his  time, 
though  it  was  not  done  apparently  without  some  oppo- 
sition in  Germany,  to  be  a  very  great  extension  of  his 
power  and  a  most  glorious  achievement  for  the  German 
nation,  but  it  was  in  reality  a  fatal  step  both  for  Ger- 
many and  for  Italy.  By  this  step  it  was  finally  made 
impossible  to  organize  a  national  government  for  Italy ; 
and  the  kings  of  Germany,  in  the  place  of  their  proper 
task,  the  consolidation  of  their  own  state,  were  given 
what  seemed  to  them  a  more  glorious  mission,  the  re- 
construction of  the  Roman  empire.  But  to  do  both 
things,  in  the  face  of  the  difficulties  which  each  pre- 
sented, was  a  human  impossibility,  and  naturally  the  in- 
terest which  they  thought  to  be  the  smaller — the  German 
nation — was  sacrificed  to  the  greater.  Things  were  al- 
lowed at  critical  periods  to  go  as  they  would,  and  the 
promising  beginning  of  a  national  unity  was  broken  into 
a  hundred  fragments. 

In  the  case  of  Italy  one  can  hardly  lament  the  failure 
of  the  Italian  people  to  form  a  truly  national  government 
as  he  does  that  of  the  Germans.  Had  such  a  government 
been  formed  it  would  undoubtedly  have  saved  the  Ital- 
ians much  political  misery  and  tyranny,  and  very  likely 
it  Avould  have  made  them  a  larger  and  a  stronger  state 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  183 

than  they  are  to-day.  But  if  it  had  been  done  either  by 
the  earlier  Lombard  kings  or  by  some  of  the  local  nobles 
at  the  fall  of  Charlemagne's  empire,  Italy  would  probably 
have  failed  of  the  peculiar  glories  of  her  history  ;  the 
stimulating  rivalries  of  the  little  municipal  republics  in 
the  latter  half  of  the  middle  ages  would  have  been 
lacking,  and  the  great  results  which  seem  to  be  in 
such  close  dependence  upon  these  would  have  occurred 
more  slowly,  and  very  possibly  in  some  other  j)art  of 
Europe. 

In  France  the  new  family  which  was  to  take  the  place 
of  the  Carolingian  formed  its  power  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Paris.  From  an  unknown  ancestor  it  rose  into  promi- 
nence very  rapidly  in  the  ninth  century  by  the  qualities 
which  everywhere  gave  success  in  those  times. '  Its 
members  were  good  fighters  and  were  able  to  protect 
their  dependants.  Its  lands  rapidly  increased  until  they 
touched  the  Loire,  and  it  went  quickly  up  the  ladder  of 
feudal  rank  until  finally  a  duchy  was  formed  and  the 
head  of  the  family  became  duke  of  the  French.  No  other 
of  the  local  powers  which  had  formed  themselves  in 
France  was  as  strong  as  this  one,  though  it  was  not  rel- 
atively so  much  stronger  than  the  others  as  the  Saxon 
power  was  in  Germany. 

When  Charles  the  Fat  was  deposed,  the  first  attempt 
was  made  to  transfer  the  crown  to  the  new  family,  and 
Duke  Eudes,  or  Odo,  was  made  king  in  888.  But  he 
was  recognized  only  by  a  small  part  of  France,  and  a 
Carolingian  king  was  set  up  against  him.     For  one  Inm- 

•The  later  tradition,  referred  to  by  Dante,  Pnnintorio,  XX.,  52,  that 
the  Capetians  were  descended  from  a  butcher  of  Paris,  has  no  historical 
foundation,  but  it  illustrates  in  a  strikilig  way  the  popular  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  men  from  the  lowest  station  were  founding  feudal  fam- 
ilies of  high  rank  at  this  time  as  a  consequence  of  their  personal  bravery 
and  their  skill  as  leaders. 


184  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION- 

dred  years  tlie  royal  title  passed  back  and  fortli  between 
the  two  houses,  neither  having  a  secure  hold  upon  it, 
though  during  far  the  larger  part  of  the  century  the  Caro- 
lingians  were  the  recognized  kings.  Finally  Duke  Hugh 
the  Great  added  the  skill  of  the  statesman  and  diplo- 
matist to  the  warrior  skill  of  his  ancestors,  and  greatly 
strengthened  and  extended  the  influence  of  his  house. 
His  son,  Hugh  Capet,  was  elected  king  on  the  death  of 
the  Carolingian  Louis  V.,  in  987,  and  though  Charles  of 
Lorraine,  who  continued  the  Carolingian  line,  offered 
resistance,  he  was  able  to  gain  no  general  support,  and 
the  Capetian  family  secured  final  possession  of  the 
throne. 

Li  the  election  of  Hugh  Capet  it  is  probable  that  a 
conscious  national  feeling — a  realization  of  the  distinction 
of  race  and  language — was  less  directly  a  factor  than  in 
the  corresponding  revolution  in  Germany.  But  the  con- 
ditions which  had  been  making  France  different  from 
Germany  were  the  conditions  which  had  undermined  the 
power  of  the  Carolingian  family  and  given  the  Capetian 
family  its  position  of  superiority,  and  the  substitution  of 
the  new  family  for  the  old  upon  the  throne  made  it  easy 
for  the  resulting  differences  to  intensify  and  perpetuate 
themselves.  France  was  becoming  thoroughly  feudal. 
It  was  the  native  land  of  the  feudal  system,  and  there 
that  system  had  developed  earliest  and  most  completely. 
This  new  feudalism  was  especially  strong  toward  the 
West.  The  Capetian  was  the  most  powerful  of  all  the 
feudal  families.  The  ^Carolingians  represented  an  old 
power  above  feudalism.  They  clung  closely  to  the  Ea'St, 
the  primitive  seat  of  their  power.  The  revolution  in 
France  meant  the  accession  to  power  of  the  new  and  ac- 
tive forces  which  were  to  shape  the  future,  in  place  of  the 
old  which  had  done  their  work,  and  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant and  direct  results  of  their  action,  under  the  na- 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  185 

tive  dynasty  tlius  placed  in  power,  was  the  growth  of  a 
national  consciousness,  from  the  slight  germ  which  ex- 
isted at  the  beginning. 

The  real  power  which  the  first  Capetians  exercised  as 
kings  was,  however,  very  slight.  The  whole  of  France 
was  covered  mth  feudal  dominions  like  the  duchy  of 
France,  some  of  them  as  strong,  if  not  stronger,  than 
their  own.  Normandy,  ChampagTie,  Burgundy,  and 
AquiCaine  were  only  the  largest  of  a  net-work  of  local 
principalities  which  occupied  the  whole  territory  and 
shut  out  the  king  from  all  direct  contact  with  land  or 
people. 

The  Capetian  duchy  of  France  was  the  source  from 
which  they  drew  their  actual  power,  and,  managed  with 
skill,  this  was  enough  to  form  a  solid  foundation  on  which 
to  build  a  more  general  authority.  The  national  chm-ch, 
with  its  influence  and  its  resources,  was  of  enormous  aid 
to  them,  and  it  was  of  no  slight  assistance  to  them  also 
that  they  had  on  their  side  the  theory  of  the  kingship 
and  of  the  prerogatives  of  a  strong  central  government 
which  had  come  down  from  the  earlier  Carolingian  days. 
These  Avere  but  shadowy  prerogatives,  and  had  no  more 
real  value  than  the  great  feudal  lords  might  be  willing  to 
allow  them,  but  they  formed  a  perfectly  distinct  standard 
toward  -which  every  accession  of  strength  by  the  Cape- 
tians was  an  advance.  The  first  four  generations  of  the 
new  dynasty  did  but  little  more  than  to  secure  the  hold 
of  their  family  upon  the  throne,  carefully  obtaining  the 
recognition  of  the  son  in  the  father's  lifetime ;  but  they 
lost  nothing,  and  the  way  Avas  prepared  for  a  steady 
advance  of  the  ro^'al  power  from  that  time  on. 

In  the  setting  up  of  these  national  governments  in 
France  and  in  Germany  there  are  certain  features  com- 
mon to  both  cases  which  are  worthy  of  notice. 

In  neither  does  there  seem  to  have  been  any  strong 


186  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

feeling  of  attachment  to  the  Carolingian  house.  How 
far  one  may  be  justified,  in  reasoning  from  this  is  doubt- 
ful, but  it  would  seem  as  if  there  Avas  in  both  countries 
at  least  an  unconscious  judgment  that  the  Carolingiaus 
represented  a  different  condition  of  things  from  the  one 
then  present,  and  a  desire  to  choose  a  royal  house  which 
would  more  perfectly  correspond  to  the  new  development. 
Certainly  in  both  countries  it  was  a  fatal  weakness  of 
that  house  that  it  had  formed  no  local  power ;  that  it  did 
not  have  in  its  hands  immediate  domains,  a  duchy  of  its 
own  which  would  have  been  strongly  devoted  to  it  and 
from  which  it  could  have  drawn  men  and  resources  inde- 
pendent of  the  great  feudal  nobles.  This  was  the  corner- 
stone of  the  success  of  the  Saxon  family  in  Germany  and 
of  the  Capetians  in  France.  If  the  Carolingiaus  had 
been  great  feudal  nobles  as  well  as  kings  they  might 
possibly  have  held  their  own. 

The  influence  of  the  church  in  both  states,  though  act- 
ing independently,  was  exactly  alike.  In  both  cases,  as 
the  power  of  the  Carolingiaus  weakened  and  the  sub- 
divisions of  the  state  became  practically  independent, 
and  as  there  was  a  feeling  manifested  that  a  general  gov- 
ernment was  not  necessary  and  that  the  local  govern- 
ments were  really  better  for  the  times ;  in  other  words, 
when  there  was  an  immediate  danger  of  complete  disin- 
tegration the  church  was  one  of  the  strongest  influences 
in  persuading  men  to  continue  the  national  government, 
and  in  effecting  the  transfer  of  the  state  to  the  new  fam- 
ilies which  could  give  some  promise  of  re-establishing 
a  strong  rule.  And  the  reason  in  both  cases  also  was  the 
same,  the  danger  which  would  threaten  the  general  or- 
ganization of  the  church  if  the  state  should  fall  apart 
into  entirely  separate  fragments.  In  both  cases,  too, 
when  the  transfer  had  been  made,  the  church,  both  in 
means  and  in  influence,  was  one  of  the  greatest  resources 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  187 

of  the  new  monarchy  in  its  struggle  to  consolidate  the 
state. 

In  England  the  various  Saxon  kingdoms  which  were 
estabhshed  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  had  been  united 
early  in  the  ninth  century  under  the  supremacy  of  Wes- 
sex.  At  the  end  of  that  century  the  strong  energy  and 
wisdom  of  Alfred  —  a  genius  equal  to  Charlemagne's 
within  his  narrower  kingdom  and  a  character  superior  to 
his — had  laid  broad  and  sound  foundations  for  a  national 
development.  The  judicial  organization  of  the  state  was 
improved ;  the  military  system  was  strengthened  and 
tested  in  a  long,  and  in  the  main  successful,  war ;  the  old 
and  conflicting  laws  were  formed  into  a  new  and  en- 
larged body  of  legislation ;  and  learning  and  literature 
were  aided  and  encouraged  by  the  king's  own  example. 
But  it  was  a  beginning  without  results. 

England  lay  directly  in  the  way  of  the  Northmen,  and 
their  invasion  of  the  island  was  a  veritable  settlement  like 
those  of  the  earHer  Teutonic  invasions.  Alfred's  suc- 
cessors struggled  long,  but  finally  in  vain,  with  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  situation,  and  England  was  in  the  end 
annexed  to  the  Scandinavian  empire  of  Cnut  the  Great 
in  the  first  part  of  the  eleventh  century.  But  Northmen 
and  Saxons  were  not  widely  separated  in  race  or  language, 
and  the  blending  of  the  two  in  a  single  people  was  not 
difficult.  The  Saxon  monarchy,  which  was  re-established 
in  1042,  might  easily  have  developed  into  the  later 
nation,  but  another  element  still  was  to  be  added  to  the 
complex  English  character. 

The  Northmen  had  made  one  other  permanent  settle- 
ment besides  that  in  England,  in  northern  France,  and 
had  formed  a  little  state  there  early  in  the  tenth  century, 
the  duchy  of  Normandy,  feudally  dependent  upon  the 
king  of  France.  There  they  had  quickly  lost  their  iden- 
tity of  race  and  language,  and  had  developed  a  peculiar 


188  MEDIEVAL   CIYILIZATTON 

and  interesting  civilization.  On  the  death  of  Edivard 
the  Confessor,  the  last  king  of  England  of  the  Saxon 
line,  William,  the  duke  of  Normandy,  asserted  a  right  to 
the  English  crown  and  speedily  made  it  good  by  force  of 
arms. 

With  him  came  a  new  invasion  of  foreigners,  to  be  ab- 
sorbed by  a  long  process  into  the  English  people,  and  a 
century  later,  with  the  accession  of  the  Angevin  kings, 
came  another  immigration  of  the  same  sort.  So  that 
even  in  England,  though  it  had  the  advantage  of  the  con- 
tinental states,  in  its  smaller  size  which  rendered  the  task 
of  a  common  government  easier,  a  genuine  national  con- 
sciousness was  formed  only  toward  the  close  of  the  mid- 
dle ages.  But  Avdth  the  accession  of  William,  in  1066, 
the  state  took  on  its  final  form,  as  had  the  German  and 
the  French  states  in  the  preceding  century. 

This  new  government  presents,  however,  at  its  be- 
ginning a  marked  contrast  to  those  of  the  other  two 
countries ;  the  feudal  system  had  not  grown  up  in  Eng- 
land under  the  Saxon  kings  as  it  had  on  the  continent. 
The  German  elements,  which  were  one  of  the  sources  of 
feudalism,  had  developed  there  into  institutions  which 
may  rightly  be  called  feudal,  but  the  essential  features 
of  the  historical  feudal  system  were  lacking,  and  no 
powerful  baronage  had  been  formed  standing  between 
the  English  people  and  the  state,  and  exercising  by  right 
or  by  usurpation  the  royal  prerogatives.  In  so  far  as 
William  introduced  the  continental  feudal  system  into 
England  he  seems  to  have  taken  pains  to  avoid  the  worst 
dangers  with  which  it  threatened  the  government. 
Adopting  a  practice  which  had  been  universal  in  the 
early  days  of  feudalism,  and  which  had  not  fallen  out  of 
use  in  thfe  duchy  of  Normandy,  he  claimed  the  superior 
allegiance,  enforced  by  an  oath,  of  the  vassals  of  every 
lord.     The  lands  which  he  granted  to  his  followers  he 


AFTEE  CHAELEMAGNE  189 

scattered  about  in  sucli  a  way  that  they  could  not  be 
consolidated  into  little  states  within  the  state,  and  with 
his  gifts  of  land  he  did  not  grant  away  royal  prerogatives. 
He  retained  also,  as  the  direct  royal  domains,  much  lar- 
ger territories  than  he  granted  to  any  vassal. 

The  results  were  decisive.  Feudalism  was  gradually 
introduced  into  England,  and  after  a  time,  in  the  legal 
theory,  the  feudal  principles  came  to  control  all  land- 
holding,  but  there  never  grew  up  in  England  any  such 
political  system  as  on  the  continent.  The  king  was  at 
the  very  outset  the  strongest  power  in  the  state,  and  the 
period  of  legal  absolute  monarchy  in  English  history  is 
that  of  her  Norman  and  first  Angevin  kings. 

In  Spain,  as  in  Italy,  there  was  nothing  correspond- 
ing to  a  national  government,  but  for  a  different  reason. 
The  old  German  kingdom  of  the  Visigoths  had  fallen  in 
the  eighth  century  before  the  Saracen  invasion.  In  the 
ninth  century  a  row  of  Christian  states  began  to  form 
across  the  northern  edge  of  the  country,  partly  from  the 
refugees  who  had  saved  themselves  in  the  mountains  of 
the  northwest  from  submission  to  the  Ai'abs  and  partly 
from  the  Frankish  counties  in  Charlemagne's  Spanish 
territory.  By  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century  the 
kingdoms  of  Leon,  Castile,  Navan-e,  Aragon,  and  Barce- 
lona had  taken  shape,  and  had  begun  the  double  process 
of  pushing  the  Arabs  further  and  further  toward  the 
south  and  of  uniting  with  one  another.  Both  these  pro- 
cesses go  on  through  all  the  remainder  of  medieval  his- 
tory, and,  indeed,  it  is  a  fact  which  had  imj)ortant 
political  consequences  in  modern  history  that  the  people 
of  Spain  were  not  united  in  a  common  national  feeling 
even  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. . 

We  have,  then,  as  the  outcome  of  this  period,  a  founda- 
tion laid  for  the  later  national  development  in  the  leading 
countries  of  Europe,  each  with  its  own  peculiar  features. 


190  MEDIEVAL   CIVILTZATIOl^ 

If  we  will  look  at  the  situation  in  each  of  the  three  great 
stateS' — England,  France,  and  Germany — ^just  after  the 
opening  of  modern  history,  say  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  compare  it  with  the  state  of  things  that  existed 
in  the  eleventh  century,  we  shall  readily  find  the  key  to 
the  inner  political  history  of  these  countries  during  the 
intervening  centuries. 

In  Germany,  at  the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, the  royal  power,  if  not  absolute  or  undisputed,  was 
strong.  The  most  essential  steps  had  been  taken 
toward  consolidating  the  state  and  destroying  the  ten- 
dencies toAvard  local  independence,  and  there  was  every 
promise  that  the  process  would  go  on  to  complete  suc- 
cess. In  the  seventeenth  century  we  find  the  central 
power  reduced  to  a  mere  name,  with  none  of  the  charac- 
teristics whatever  of  a  national  government,  and  the  ter- 
ritory occupied  by  the  nation  split  up  into  hundreds  of 
little  states,  to  all  intents  and  purposes  entirely  inde- 
pendent. In  the  time  between  these  two  dates  something 
must  have  greatly  weakened  the  royal  power  and  allowed 
the  disruptive  forces,  which  the  Saxon  kings  had  appar- 
ently overcome,  to  act  again  and  to  bring  about  their 
natural  results^results  much  more  extreme  indeed  and 
more  disastrous  for  the  nation  than  those  whicli  were 
threatened  at  the  beginning  by  the  revival  of  the  old 
tribal  spirit. 

In  France,  in  the  eleventh  century,  the  royal  power 
was  hardly  more  than  a  mere  theory,  and  the  country 
was  broken  up  into  numerous  fragments  which  were 
practically  almost  as  independent  as  those  of  modern 
Germany.  In  the  France  of  the  seventeenth  century  we 
find,  on  the  other  hand,  an  almost  ideal  centralization. 
Every  function  of  the  general  government,  and  almost 
every  one  of  local  government  is  exercised  by  Louis  XIV., 
and  scarcely  a  vestige  is  left  of  any  constitutional  check 


AFTER  CHARLEMAGNE  191 

upon  his  iiTesponsible  will.  The  intervening  history 
must  have  been  one  of  continuous  centralization.  The 
kings  must  have  been  able  to  destroy  completely  the 
feudal  system,  to  force  the  nobles  into  obedience,  and  to 
recover  without  exception  the  prerogatives  which  they  had 
usurped.  French  history  must  be  the  history  of  the  for- 
mation of  a  real  national  government  out  of  a  feudal  chaos. 

When  we  examine  English  history  in  the  seventeenth 
century  we  find  the  kings  engaged  in  a  final  struggle  to 
preserve  the  last  relics  of  that  absolutism  Avliich  the 
Norman  kings  had  exercised  without  a  check,  and  that 
centur}^  does  not  close  until  they  had  virtually  confessed 
defeat,  and  the  real  management  of  the  state  had  passed 
into  the  hands  of  a  legislative  assembly  representing  both 
nobles  and  people — an  assembly  strongly  aristocratic  in 
its  spirit  and  composition,  but  started  already,  as  is 
plainly  to  be  seen,  in  the  direction  of  a  more  democratic 
government.  English  domestic  history  during  these  cen- 
turies must  have  been  ver}^  different  from  either  French 
or  German.  In  some  way  a  virtual  alliance  must  have 
been  brought  about  between  the  nobles — so  much  weaker 
at  the  start  than  the  king — and  the  representatives  of  a 
strong  middle  class,  and  together  they  must  have  carried 
on  the  work  of  limiting  the  royal  power  and  of  finding 
out  constitutional  checks  upon  the  exercise  of  the  king's 
prerogatives  which  should  gradually  transfer  the  real 
control  of  affairs  to  themselves. 

The  later  medieval  history  of  Germany  is  the  history 

of  the  destruction  of  a  promising  national  organization ; 

of  France,  the  history  of  the  construction  of  a  complete 

.  al>solntism  ;  of  England,  the  history  of  the  formation  of  a 

constitutionally  limited  monarchy. 

The  movement  toward  iiation  formation  which  follows 
the  breaking  up  of  Charlemagne's  empire  was  only  a 


192  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

slight  and  vaguely  conscious  beginning,  but  it  was  a  be- 
ginning clearly  and  definitely,  and  of  the  very  greatest 
interest.  The  importance  of  the  step  in  advance  which 
was  taken  when  the  nation  came  finally  into  conscious 
existence,  as  a  result  of  the  movement  which  begins  at 
this  time,  cannot  be  stated  in  words  nor  in  any  way  meas- 
ured. The  whole  of  civilization  was  lifted  at  once  by 
that  step  to  a  higher  plane.  As  in  the  opening  age  of 
civilization  of  which  history  tells  us  anything — not  by  in- 
ference backward  but  by  record — the  unit  was  the  family, 
and  later  the  tribe  was  formed  by  a  union  of  families,  and 
later  still  the  city  state  by  a  coalition  of  tribes,  and  all 
ancient  history  centred  about  the  strife  of  city  state 
wdth  city  state,  until  one  such  city  had  grown  into  a  great 
empire  in  which  all  city  and  race  lines  were  obliterated 
in  one  vast  unity  which  was  neither  city  state  nor  yet 
nation,  so  by  the  end  of  the  middle  ages  another  stage 
in  this  line  of  progress  was  reached,  and  in  modern  times 
the  unit  of  all  political  and  public  life  and  the  acting 
force  in  what  we  call  "  international  "  politics  has  been 
the  nation — not  the  state,  nor  the  government,  but  the 
living  organism  which  expresses  itself  through  the  state — 
a  higher  organism  than  any  which  had  existed  in  the 
classic  world. '  It  may  be  characterized  as  a  community 
of  persons  having  a  common  language  and  race  feeling, 
common  interests,  aspirations,  and  history,  and  occupy- 
ing a  definite  territory  in  which  city  and  country  are  in- 
distinguishably  blended,  and  feeling  itself  a  fully  inde- 

'  If  we  could  venture  to  put  any  trust  in  the  apparently  regular  and 
natural  character  of  this  progress,  the  next  step  logically  would  seem  to 
be  the  formation  of  some  kind  of  an  international  federation,  or  possibly 
even  a  world  state.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  point  out  at  least  a  few 
tendencies  of  the  present  time  which  seem  to  point  in  the  direction  of 
such  a  result — a  possibility  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  though  seem- 
ingly in  the  best  position  to  realize  it,  does  not  appear  to  recognize,  cer- 
tainly' not  so  consciously  as  some  other  races  do. 


AFTER   CHARLEMAGNE  193 

pendent  and  equal  member  of  a  larger  system  of  things, 
once  Christendom,  now  perhaps  the  whole  world.  One 
of  the  most  profound  forces  of  modern  times  made  its 
way  into  history  with  the  gradual  formation  of  this  idea, 
and  the  broadening  of  all  thought  and  the  stimulating  of 
all  activities  which  accompanied  it. 

18 


CHAPTEE  IX. 

THE  FEUDAL  SYSTEM  ^ 

Out  of  the  fragments  of  tlie  Carolingian  empire  the 
modern  nations  were  finally  to  arise.  But  there  was  in 
the  meantime,  as  we  have  seen,  a  considerable  period, 
after  the  fall  of  the  old  government,  before  any  real 
national  governments,  at  all  corresponding  to  the  mod- 
ern idea,  came  into  existence.  This  is  the  period  when 
the  feudal  system  was  the  prevailing  form  of  political 
organization. 

In  any  detailed  history  of  civilization  it  would  be 
necessary  to  give  much  space  to  the  feudal  system,  both 

'  There  is  no  satisfactory  detailed  account  in  English  to  which  refer- 
ence can  be  made,  either  on  the  origin  or  on  the  character  of  feudal- 
ism. Chapter  XV.,  in^Emerton's  Introduction  to  the  Middle  Ages, 
is  valuable  but  brief.  Two  articles  "of  my  own,  in  Vol.  VII.  of  the 
Andover  Review,  give  a  somewhat  fuller  account  of  the  origin  of  the 
feudal  system  than  the  present  chapter,  but  are  here  modified  in  one 
or  two  details  as  a  result  of  later  studies.  The  brief  account  in  Stubbs's 
Constitutional  Histwy  of  England  is  much  better  than  that  in  any 
other  of  the  standard  histories,  but  is  not  easy  for  the  general  reader  to 
understand.  No  other  accounts  can  be  referred  to  which  would  not  be 
more  misleading  than  helpful.  In  regard  to  the  character  of  feudalism, 
the  contribution  made  by  the  feudal  law  to  national  systems  of  law  was 
so  great  that  a  somewhat  more  accurate  knowledge  of  feudal  practices 
was  preserved,  and  the  accounts  given  in  such  books,  for  example, 
as  Hallam's  Middle  Ages  and  Guizot's  History  of  Civilization  in 
France,  are  more  nearly  in  agreement  with  the  facts,  though  needing 
modification  in  many  ways,  than  what  these  authors  have  to  say  of  the 
origin  of  the  system. 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  195 

because  of  the  large  field  which  it  occupies  in  the  middle 
ages,  and  also  because  it  is  oue  of  the  most  influential  of 
medieval  institutions,  the  source  of  legal  principles  and 
social  ideas,  which  are,  even  now,  by  no  means  obsolete. 

The  question  of  the  origin  of  the  feudal  sj'stem  is  one 
of  the  most  difficult  in  all  institutional  history,  for  one 
reason,  because- it  took  its  rise  in  ages  which  have  left  us 
very  scanty  historical  material,  and  for  another,  because 
it  originated  in  the  domain  of  extra-legal  and  private 
operations,  and  under  the  influence  of  forces  which  leave 
but  slight  traces  of  their  working.  Every  important 
point  in  this  history  has  been  the  subject  of  long  and 
violent  controversy,  and  is  so  still,  though  to  a  less  ex- 
tent. It  may  be  said  that  opinion  is  now  practically 
united  upon  the  main  points,  and  that  present  difter- 
ences  concern  minor  points  of  detail,  or  the  amount  of 
emphasis  which  shall  be  placed  upon  certain  facts. 

Before  entering  upon  the  details  of  the  origin  of  the 
feudal  system,  there  is  one  general  consideration  which 
has  an  important  bearing  upon  the  study  which  should 
be  made  clear.  It  is  necessary  here,  and  in  all  institu- 
tional history,  to  distinguish  very  carefuUy  between  two 
sets  of  causes  or  antecedents.  First,  there  is  the  general 
cause,  or  the  prevailing  condition  of  things  in  the  society 
of  the  time,  which  renders  a  new  institution  necessary ; 
and,  second,  there  is  the  old  institution,  on  which  the  pre- 
vailing cause  seizes,  and  which  it  transforms  into  a  new 
one.  Both  these  are  always  present.  No  institution  ever 
starts  into  life  wholly  new.  Every  new  institution  has  its 
foundation  far  in  the  past  in  some  earlier  one.  The  jDre- 
vailing  necessity  transforms  it  into  a  new  institution,  but 
the  character  of  the  new  creation  is  as  much  conditioned 
by  the  character  of  the  old  as  it  is  by  the  new  necessity 
which  it  is  made  to  meet.  The  sne(n' which  is  sometimes 
heard  against  that  sort  of  investigation  which  seeks  the 


196  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

foundations  of  a  neAv  institution  in  those  which  have  pre- 
ceded it,  as  merely  antiquarian,  is  proof  only  of  a  very 
narrow  conception  of  history. 

The  application  of  this  to  the  present  case  becomes 
clear  enough  when  the  problem  before  us  is  specifically 
stated.  It  is  not  to  account  for  the  rise  of  feudal  forms 
in  general,  but  to  account  for  that  peculiar  feudal  system, 
which  arose  in  western  Europe  in  the  middle  ages.  It 
is  undoubtedly  true  that  institutions  have  existed  in 
Japan,  and  in  Central  Africa,  and  in  various  Mohamme- 
dan states,  almost  everywhere,  indeed,  which  are  justly 
called  feudal.  It  is  true  that  under  certain  political  con- 
ditions human  nature  turns,  naturally  as  it  would  seem, 
to  forms  of  government  which  are  feudal.  And  it  is 
necessary  to  take  these  political  and  social  conditions 
into  account  in  our  study  of  the  problem  more  fully  than 
has  been  done,  perhaps,  by  some  merely  institutional 
historians.'  They  are  among  the  most  essential  causes 
at  work.  But  when  taken  alone  they  merely  account  for 
the  rise  of  feudal  forms  in  general.  They  give  us  no 
reason  for  the  fact  that  in  institutional  details  these  va- 
rious feudal  systems  di£fer  from  one  another  in  essential 
particulars.  To  explain  this  fact  we  must  turn  to  the 
eailier  institutional  foundation  on  which  the  social  forces 
built. 

By  "  the  feudal  system,"  when  used  without  qualifica- 
tion, we  always  mean  the  system  of  medieval  Avestern 
Europe,  and  in  accounting  for  its  origin  we  have  two  sets 
of  facts  to  consider — the  condition  of  society  which  gave 

'  It  is  a  simple  enougli  truth,  but  one  not  always  kept  in  mind,  that  the 
same  institution  placed  under  the  influence  of  different  conditions  will 
develop  into  very  different  results.  Negro  slavery,  transplanted  from 
Europe,  was  a  very  different  thing  in  the  mines  of  Peru  or  the  cotton 
fields  of  Mississippi,  from  what  it  had  been  in  the  cultured  society  of 
Renaissance  Florence.  A  series  of  instantaneous  photographs  of  an  in- 
stitution in  the  process  of  growth  will  not  suffice  for  a  full  account  of  it. 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  197 

such  forms  an  opportunity  to  develop,  and  the  earlier 
institutions  which  were  transformed  by  these  social 
conditions  into  the  historical  feudal  system,  and  which 
determined  the  form  assumed  by  many  of  the  special 
features  of  that  system. 

This  historical  feudal  system  came  into  existence  in 
the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries,  owing  to  the  political 
disorders  of  the  time,  and  the  inability  of  the  central 
government — even  of  so  strong  a  government  as  Charle- 
magne's—to do  its  necessary  work  without  some  such 
help.  It  is  itself  a  crude  and  barbarous  form  of  govern- 
ment in  which  the  political  organization  ^jf^ied  on  the 
tenure  of  land ;  that  is,  the  public  duties  ^d  obligations 
which  ordinarily  the  citizen  owes  to  the  state,  are  turned 
into  private  and  personal  services  which  he  owes  to  his 
lord  in  return  for  land  which  he  has  received  from  him. 
The  state  no  longer  dej)euds  upon  its  citizens,  as  citizens, 
for  the  fulfilment  of  public  duties,  but  it  depends  upon 
a  cei-tain  few  to  perform  specified  duties,  which  they  owe 
as  vassals  of  the  king,  and  these  in  turn  depend  upon 
their  vassals  for  services,  which  will  enable  them  to  meet 
their  o^vn  obligations  toward  the  king. 

There  are  always  present  in  this  historical  feudal  sys- 
tem two  elements  very  closely  united  together,  but  which 
are  really  distinct,  and  which  must  be  kept  apart  from 
one  another  in  mind  if  we  are  to  understand  the  origin 
of  the  system.  One  of  these  relates  wholly  to  land  and 
the  tenure  by  which  it  is  held.  This  land  element  is  the 
"  benefice  "  or  "  fief."  The  other  is  the  personal  relation, 
the  bond,  of  mutual  fidelity  and  protection  which  binds 
together  the  grades  in  the  feudal  hierarchy.  This  per- 
sonal element  is  the  relation  of  lord  and  vassal.  In  the 
ideal  feudal  system  these  two  are  always  united,  the  vas- 
sal always  receives  a  fief,  the  fief  is  always  held  by  a 
vassal.     In  practice  they  were  sometimes  separated,  and 


198  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZ\TION 

in  some  countries  such  a  separation  was  recognized  by 
the  feudal  law. 

There  are,  then,  these  two  specific  questions  concerning 
the  origin  of  the  feudal  system  :  How  did  these  two  in- 
stitutions, vassalage  and  the  benefice,  come  into  existence 
and  become  united  ;  and  how  did  public  duties,  for  ex- 
ample military  service,  get  attached  to  them,  and  become 
changed  in  this  way  into  private  services  which  one  paid 
as  a  form  of  land  rent  ? 

When  we  come  to  trace  the  origin  of  these  two  insti- 
tutions we  find  that  we  are  carried  back  to  the  time  of 
political  in^MBflty  when  the  Roman  empire  was  falling 
to  pieces,  jusffl^fore  and  at  the  moment  of  the  German 
invasions.  Then  began  the  conditions  which  called  these 
institutions  into  existence,  and  which,  continuing  in  the 
main  unchanged  through  the  whole  period,  transformed 
them  into  the  perfected  feudal  system. 

As  the  real  power  which  the  Roman  emperor  had  at 
his  command  declined,  his  ability  to  protect  the  citizens 
and  preserve  order  in  the  outlying  provinces  became  less 
and  less.  The  peace  and  security  which  Rome  had 
formerly  established  could  no  longer  be  maintained,  and 
the  provinces  fell  a  prey  to  various  disorders.  Usui-piug 
emperors,  peasants  in  insurrection,  revolted  troops,  bands 
of  invading  Germans,  marauders  of  all  sorts  appeared 
everywhere,  and  the  state  could  not  hold  them  in  check. 

But  the  individual  must  obtain  protection  at  some 
price.  If  he  owns  land,  he  will  need  protection  in  order 
to  cultivate  it  and  enjoy  the  returns ;  if  he  has  no  land, 
he  will  still  need  protection  for  his  life  and  his  means  of 
livelihood.  If  he  cannot  get  it  from  the  state,  he  must 
seek  it  where  he  can  find  it.  In  such  political  conditions 
there  always  arises  a  class  of  men  strong  enough  from 
wealth  or  position  or  abilities  to  give  some  degree  of 
protection  to  weaker  men.     The  weaker  men  take  refuge 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  199 

with  the  stronger  and  increase  their  power,  which  thus 
grows  into  a  little  semi-detached  fragment  of  the  state, 
and  the  germ  of  the  feudal  system  has  come  into  exist- 
ence. 

In  the  later  Roman  empire,  under  the  influence  of 
these  conditions,  two  practices  arose  which  we  need  to 
notice.  One  of  them  related  to  land,  the  other  to  persons 
owning  no  land.  In  the  case  of  the  first  the  small  land- 
owner, long  at  an  economic  disadvantage,  and  now,  in 
the  midst  of  the  crowding  evils  of  the  time,  threatened 
with  total  destruction,  gave  up  his  land  to  some  large 
landowner  near  him,  whose  position  was  strong  enough 
to  command  or  compel  respect  from  vagrant  enemies, 
and  received  it  back  from  him  to  cultivate,  no  longer  as 
owner,  but  as  a  tenant  at  will. 

As  the  form  of  tenure  in  such  cases  a  peculiar  kind  of 
lease,  which  had  been  known  to  the  Roman  law  as  the 
precarmm,  received  a  very  great  extension  in  practice. 
Under  this  form  the  owner  granted  the  use  of  a  piece  of 
property  to  another,  without  rent  and  with  no  period  of 
time  specified,  but  revocable  at  the  will  of  the  owner.' 
This  was  the  kind  of  tenure  by  which  the  small  land- 
holder held  and  cultivated  the  land  which  he  had  been 
obliged  to  surrender  to  some  strong  man  for  fear  of  los- 
ing it  entirely.  He  lost  the  ownership  of  it ;  he  held  it 
only  so  long  as  his  lord  might  please,  but  his  actual  con- 
dition was  much  improved.     In  the  growing  scarcity  of 

'  The  language  of  the  Digest  both  illustrates  this  point  and  suggests 
the  way  iu  which  benefice  came  to  take  the  place  of  precarium  as  the 
technical  word.  It  says,  XLIII. ,  26,  14,  Tnterdictum  de  precariis  merito 
introductum  est,  quia  nulla  eo  nomine  juris  civilis  actio  esset  ;  magis 
enim  ad  donationes  et  beneficii  causam,  quam  ad  negotii  contracti  spec- 
tat  precarii  condicio.  This  means  that  a  case  concerning  a  precarium 
does  not  have  the  same  standing  in  the  courts  as  an  ordinary  business 
transaction,  because  a  grant  in  this  form  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of 
business  as  of  gift  or  to  confer  a  benefit. 


200  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOTT 

laborers  lie  was  not  likely  to  be  disturbed  in  liis  tenure, 
and  he  had  now  an  armed  force  which  could  be  depended 
on  to  keep  off  all  marauders  not  actually  armies,  and  he 
had  a  right  to  take  refuge  in  his  lord's  fortress  on  some  not 
distant  hilltop  when  a  more  serious  invasion  threatened. 

The  other  practice  was  adopted  to  meet  the  case  of 
the  freeman  who  owned  no  land,  and  it  gave  rise  to  an 
institution  closely  resembling  the  clientel  which  C<iesar 
describes  as  j)i"evailing  in  Gaul  at  the  time  of  his  con- 
quest, and  not  unlike  the  earlier  Roman  institution  of 
patron  and  client.  The  dependent  is  often  called  a  cli- 
ent in  the  language  of  the  time,  and  the  institution  itself 
the  patrocinium. 

In  a  case  of  this  sort  the  poor  freeman  goes  to  the 
rich  and  strong  man  who  can  afford  him  protection,  and 
explaining  that  he  can  no  longer  care  for  or  support  him- 
self, begs  to  be  taken  under  his  protection  and  furnished 
with  shelter  and  support.'  The  rich  man  grants  the  pe- 
tition, adds  the  client  to  his  household,  and  expects  from 
him,  in  return,  such  services  as  a  freeman  may  perform. 
There  seems  to  have  been  no  specified  services,  nor  pe- 
culiar duty  of  fidelity  in  this  arrangement,  but  its  obliga- 
tions were  probably  clearly  enough  defined  in  the  cus- 
tomary law  which  all  understood. 

In  this  way  many  local  magnates  of  the  age  of  the 
invasion  collected  about  them  considerable  forces,  com- 
posed also  partly  of  armed  slaves  and  serfs,  and  so  added 
greatly  to  their  o"^ii  power,  and  furnished  the  locality 
with  some  degree  of  security.  In  some  instances,  both 
in  the  East  and  in  the  West,  we  know  that  such  private 
forces  amounted  to  respectable  armies  and  served  to  pro- 
tect extensive  territories,  or  even  to  turn  the  march  of  an 
invading  tribe. 

'  There  is  a  translation  of  a  formula  for  this  act  of  "  commendation,"" 
in  use  after  the  cou(juest,  in  Emerton,  Middle  Ages,  p.  252,  n.  1. 


THE  FEUDAL   SYSTEM  201 

It  is  important  to  notice  tliat,  in  tlie  case  of  the  free- 
man entering  into  either  of  these  relations,  the  personal 
one  or  the  one  relating  to  land,  there  was  no  loss  of  polit- 
ical status  or  personal  freedom.  The  dependent,  under 
the  new  arrangement,  remained,  in  either  relation,  ex- 
actly what  he  had  been  before,  both  in  reference  to  his 
duties  to  the  government  and  his  personal  rights. 

It  was  of  course  true,  as  the  history  of  the  Eoman  tax 
system  makes  evident,  that  the  rich  man  might  be  so 
strong  in  his  district  that  he  could  refuse  to  meet  his 
obligations  toward  the  government,  and  set  the  local 
officers  at  defiance,  and  so  be  able  to  protect  from  the 
burdens  of  the  state  the  poorer  men  who  became  his 
clients  and  dej)endents.  This  was  no  doubt  one  reason 
for  the  rapid  extension  of  these  practices.  But  if  he  did 
this,  it  was  an  illegal  usurpation,  not  a  recognized  change 
in  the  status  or  duties  of  his  dependents.  That  such  re- 
sults did  follow  is  clear  enough  from  the  attitude  of  the 
state  toward  these  practices,  which  it  pronounced  illegal 
and  forbade  under  the  heaviest  penalties.  But  it  was 
powerless  to  interfere,  and  even  the  death  penalty  had 
no  effect  to  check  them.  Indeed,  if  the  state  had  been 
strong  enough  to  stop  them,  it  would  have  been  strong 
enough  to  have  preserved  such  general  secnnty  that  no 
necessity  for  such  customs  would  ever  have  arisen. 

The  results,  as  seen  at  the  time  of  the  invasions,  have 
many  features  in  common  with  the  later  feudal  system, 
and  it  is  right,  in  the  sense  mentioned  at  the  beginning 
of  the  chapter,  to  speak  of  them  as  feudal,  but  they  are 
still  very  far  from  being  the  historical  feudal  system. 

In  the  first  place,  the  characteristic  feature  of  the  later 
feudalism  was  lacking.  These  two  practices  remained 
entirely  distinct  from  one  another.  They  were  not  yet 
united  into  a  single  institution.  The  personal  relation, 
or  clientage,  did  not  imply  at  all  the  reception  of  land, 


203  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

and  holding  land  by  the  precarium  tenure  involved  no 
obligation  of  service. 

In  the  second  place,  there  was  no  common  organiza- 
tion, either  exjDressed  or  implied,  as  there  was  in  the 
completed  feudal  system,  between  the  various  local 
powers  which  had  been  formed.  They  were  merely  pri- 
vate and  wholly  separate  fragments  into  which  the  state 
had  fallen.  In  other  words,  there  was  not  enough  con- 
nection between  them,  taken  alone,  to  have  preserved 
the  state,  as  a  state,  through  a  period  of  political  chaos, 
but  they  would  have  produced  a  thousand  little  local 
states  wholly  independent  and  sovereign. 

In  the  third  place,  the  state  regarded  these  institutions 
not  merely  as  unconstitutional  and  improper  for  itself, 
but  also  as  illegal  and  imjiroper  for  private  citizens.  The 
local  potentate  might  actually  have  usurped,  as  we  know 
he  did,  many  of  the  functions  of  the  state,  judicial  as 
well  as  military,  and  have  excluded  practically  the  state 
from  his  whole  territory  and  taken  its  place  himself,  but 
this  was  a  usui'pation  and  strictly  forbidden  by  the  laws. 
In  the  later  feudal  system  the  similar  practices  are  not 
merely  recognized  by  the  government  as  legal,  but  they 
are  even,  in  some  cases,  enjoined  as  duties,  and  become, 
practically  at  least,  the  very  constitution  of  the  state,  so 
that  in  many  cases  the  sovereignty  exercised  by  the 
feudal  baron  over  his  territory  was  the  only  sovereignty 
exercised  by  the  state. 

The  Franks,  when  they  entered  Gaul,  found  these 
customs  prevailing  there,  as  in  all  the  provinces  of  the 
empire.  They  dealt  with  them,  as  they  did  with  many 
Roman  institutions  which  they  found,  the}"  allowed  them 
to  continue  in  use  and  they  adopted  them  themselves. 
It  was  under  the  conditions  which  prevailed  m  the 
Frankish  kingdom,  and  by  means  of  the  legal  expedients 
adopted   by  the   Frankish   kings,    that   these   primitive 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  203 

beginnings  were  developed  into   the   feudal   system   of 
Europe. 

The  conquest  was  indeed  a  most  serious  crisis  in  the 
history  of  feudalism.  Had  they  been  disposed  to  do  so, 
the  Frankish  kings  would  doubtless  have  found  it  easier 
than  the  Eoman  emperors  had  done,  to  crush  out  these 
institutions,  still  in  a  formative  condition,  and  to  es- 
tablish a  centralization,  if  not  more  complete  in  theory, 
certainly  more  so  in  fact.  The  government  which  they 
did  found  had  many  of  the  features  of  an  absolutism  in- 
compatible with  the  continued  gTOwth  of  these  institu- 
tions. If  they  had  destroyed  them,  and  entirely  pre- 
vented their  fui-ther  gro-n^h,  their  government  would  have 
escaped  its  most  dangerous  enemy  of  the  future — the  one 
to  which  it  was  finally  compelled  to  surrender.  But  the 
more  simple  political  mind  of  the  Frank  could  not  per- 
ceive this  danger  so  clearly  as  the  Roman  did,  and  an- 
other fact  was  an  even  more  decisive  influence  against 
any  change.  The  Franks  themselves  had  institutions 
and  practices  which  were  so  similar  to  those  of  the  Ro- 
mans that  it  was  the  most  natural  thing  imaginable  for 
them  to  adopt  these,  and  to  regard  them  at  once,  as 
they  had  never  before  been  regarded,  as  perfectly  legal, 
because   the   corresponding   German  institutions  were.' 

'  Various  theories  have  been  advanced  to  account  for  this  apparently 
extraordinary  short-sightedness  on  the  part  of  the  Frankish  kings,  both 
Merovingian  and  Carolingian.  M.  Beaudouin  suggests,  in  the  essay  re- 
ferred to  below,  the  fact  that  the  early  vassal  relation  did  not  with- 
draw the  man  from  the  obligations  of  the  ordinary  citizen  toward  the 
state,  as,  in  some  cases  at  least,  it  had  done  under  the  empire.  This  is 
certainly  a  more  reasonable  explanation  than  any  previously  made.  I 
have  repeated  in  the  text  the  suggestion  made  in  the  Andover  Beneto 
article  referred  to  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter.  The  fact  that  the 
Germans  had  similar  customs,  which  they  had  always  considered  not 
merely  as  legal,  but  as  highly  commendable,  especially  the  comitdtiiK, 
must  have  had  an  important  bearing  on  the  changed  attitude  of  the 
state  toward  vassalage. 


204  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOTT 

The  German  customs  and  the  Roman  customs  ran  ra- 
pidly together  into  a  common  practice,  and  the  German 
variations  from  the  Eoman  added  very  essential  elements 
of  their  own  to  the  common  product,  so  that  the  feudal 
system  presents  one  of  the  clearest  cases  that  we  have 
of  the  union  of  the  German  and  the  Eoman  factors 
together  to  form  the  new  institution. 

The  most  striking  of  these  German  institutions  was 
the  comitatus,  which  we  have  briefly  described  in  the 
chapter  on  the  German  invasions.  The  old  theory  of  its 
relation  to  the  origin  of  feudalism  is  now  abandoned, 
but  its  place  has  been  taken  by  a  clear  recognition  of 
the  very  important  contribution  which  it  made  to  the 
final  result.  It  was  an  institution  corresponding  very 
closely  to  the  Eoman  client  system  which  we  have  de- 
scribed above.  It  was  a  purely  personal  relationship)  of 
mutual  protection,  service,  and  support,  between  a  chief 
and  certain  men,  usually  young  men  of  the  tribe,  vohm- 
tarily  entered  into  on  both  sides.  But  it  had  certain  dis- 
tinctive features  of  its  own,  which  are  lacking  in  the  Eo- 
man institution,  but  characteristic  of  the  later  feudalism. 
It  was  not  regarded  by  the  Germans  as  a  mere  business 
transaction  of  give  and  take,  but  was  looked  upon  as  con- 
ferring especial  honor  on  lord  and  man  alike.  It  was 
entered  upon  by  a  special  ceremonial,  and  sanctioned  by 
a  solemn  oath,  and  the  bond  of  personal  fidelity  estab- 
lished by  it  was  considered  to  be  of  the  most  sacred  and 
binding  character.  All  these  ideas  and  customs  passed 
from  the  comitatus  into  the  feudal  sj^stem. 

The  Eoman  practices  in  this  matter,  which  the  Franks 
found  in  Gaul,  seemed  to  them,  therefore,  very  natural 
and  proper,  and  they  adopted  them  at  once,  and  it  seems 
evident,  as  the  Franks  became  settled  upon  the  land  and 
the  members  of  the  original  royal  comitatus  came  to  have 
private  interests  and  landed  possessions  which  made  it 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  205 

difficult  for  them  to  fulfil  the  duties  of  the  old  relation, 
or  to  be  used  for  its  purposes,  that  their  place  was  taken 
by  persons  who  had  entered  into  a  personal  relation  to 
the  king,  corresponding,  both  in  motive  and  in  form, 
rather  to  the  Koman  2^cit7'ocinkcm  than  to  the  German 
comitafus.'  So  that  the  institution  which  survived  in  the 
new  state  was  the  Roman  rather  than  the  German, 
which  must  necessarily  have  disappeared  in  the  decided- 
ly changed  conditions  of  the  national  life,  but  it  was  the 
Roman  essentially  modified  by  ideas  and  usages  from 
the  German. 

It  was  some  little  time  after  the  conquest,  so  far  as  the 
documents  allow  us  to  judge,  before  the  word  vassus  be- 
gan to  be  employed  for  the  man  in  this  personal  rela- 
tion. Originally  applied  to  servants  not  free,  it  came 
into  gradual  use  for  the  free  clients,  and  acquired  a  dis- 
tinctly honorable  meaning  in  somewhat  the  same  way  as 
the  English  word  knight. 

In  reference  to  the  land  relationship,  which  we  have 
described,  it  has  been  conclusively  shown  lately,  in  op- 
position to  earlier  theories,  that  the  German  kings,  fol- 
lowing native  German  ideas,  did  'probably  from  the  be- 
ginning make  donations  of  land,  which  carried  only  a 
limited  right  of  ownership,  and  which  fell  back  in  certain 
contingencies  to  the  donor.''  Such  practices  would  make 
it  easy  for  the  Franks  to  understand  and  adopt  the 
Roman  practice  of  the  precarium,  and  it  appears  to  have 
been  so  adopted,  quite  extensively,  by  German  private 
landowners  who  found  themselves  in  a  similar  position 
to  the  Roman,  and  to  have  been  continued  also  as  before, 
by  Roman  subjects  of  the  Prankish  state.  But  still,  to 
all  appearances,  it  was  not  adopted  in  any  really  impor- 
tant way  by  the  kings,  until  the  beginning  of  the  Carolin- 

'  See  Brunner,  Deutsche  RecMsgescMchte,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  258-264. 

-  iiruuuer,  Sitzungshei'ichte  der  Preussischeii  Akitdcmie,  1885,  p.  1173. 


306  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

gian  period,  and  the  chief  agent  in  carrying  over  the  pre- 
carice,  as  the  word  came  to  be  written,  from  the  Roman 
to  the  German  state,  seems  to  have  been  the  church. 

The  church  appears  to  have  used  this  tenure  very  ex- 
tensively under  the  empire,  both  as  a  means  of  increas- 
ing its  territories — the  donor  retaining  the  use  of  his 
grant  for  Hfe — and  also  as  a  convenient  way  of  bestowing 
upon  persons,  whose  support  or  favor  it  desired  to  se- 
cure, lauds  which  it  could  not  alienate.  It  seems  to  have 
introduced  a  small  rent-charge,  as  a  sign  of  ownership, 
and  to  have  tended  to  limit  such  grants  to  a  specified 
time,  commonly  five  years,  or  the  life-time  of  the  recip- 
ient. These  practices  it  continued  in  very  frequent  use 
under  the  Frankish  kingdom. 

Through  the  Merovingian  period  of  Frankish  history, 
therefore,  these  institutions  remained  in  very  much  the 
same  shape  in  which  they  were  under  the  empire,  except 
that  they  were  not  now  regarded  as  illegal.  It  is  in  the 
Carolingian  period  that  they  took  the  next  great  steps  in 
theu-  development — the  steps  that  were  essentially  neces- 
sary to  the  formation  of  the  historical  feudal  system. 
They  then  became  united  as  the  two  sides  of  a  single 
institution,  and  they  were  adopted  by  the  government 
as  a  means  of  securing  the  performance  of  their  pub- 
lic duties  by  the  subjects  of  the  state.  The  simplest 
example  of  this  process  is  the  transformation  of  the  citi- 
zen army  into  a  feudal  army,  and  this  gives  us  also,  in 
its  main  features,  the  history  of  the  joining  together  of 
the  benefice  and  vassalage. 

Originally  neither  of  these  primitive  Roman  institu- 
tions had,  as  it  would  seem,  any  especially  military 
character.  And  this  is,  Tvdth  an  insignificant  modifica- 
tion, as  true  of  the  Merovingian  as  of  the  Roman  period. 
In  such  troubled  times,  however,  as  those  which  brought 
these  institutions  into  use,  military  service  would  cer- 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  207 

tainly  be  one  of  the  most  fi-equent  services  needed  from 
the  dependent,  and  apparently  some  of  them  at  least 
were  constantly  employed  as  an  armed  force,  but  there 
was,  during  the  earlier  period,  no  necessary  connection 
of  this  military  service  with  these  relationships  either 
of  person  or  of  land.  The  first  beginnings  of  this  con- 
nection were  made  at  the  opening  of  the  Carolingian  age 
under  Charles  Martel;  the  completion  of  it — the  estab- 
lishment of  military  service  as  the  almost  indispensable 
rule  in  feudalism — was  hardly  accomplished  before  the 
period  ends. 

The  occasion  which  led  to  the  beginning  of  this  change 
was  the  Ai'abian  attack  on  Gaul,  and  the  necessity  of 
forming  a  cavalry  force  to  meet  it.'  Originally  the 
Franks  had  fought  on  foot.  But  the  Ai'abs  were  on 
horseback,  and  their  sudden  raids,  which  continued  in 
south  Gaul  long  after  the  battle  of  Tours,  could  not  be 
properly  met,  and  the  defeated  enemy  properly  pursued 
without  the  use  of  horse.  But  this  was  putting  a  heavy 
burden  of  expense  on  the  citizen,  who  armed  and  sup- 
ported himself,  and  who  was  ah'eady  severely  oppressed 
by  the  conditions  of  the  service.  The  state  must  aid 
him  to  bear  it.     This  it  could  do  only  by  gi'ants  of  land. 

The  first  Carolingian  princes  had,  however,  but  scanty 
resources  in  this  direction.  The  royal  domains  had  been 
exhausted  under  the  Merovingian  kings.  Their  own 
house  possessions,  though  very  extensive,  would  not  go 
far  toward  meeting  the  needs  of  a  family,  gradually 
usm-ping  the  royal  power,  and  so  in  need  of  means  to  pur- 

'  See  Brunner,  Der  Tteitevdienst  und  die  Anfdnge  des  LeJmwesens,  in 
the  Zeitsclirift  der  Sarigny-Stiftung  fur  ItechtsgeschicJde,  Germanis- 
tische  AhtJieilung,  Vol.  VIII. ,  pp.  1-38.  This  essay  of  Bruuner's,  and 
the  one  of  his  last  referred  to,  are  the  most  noteworthy  studies  on 
the  origin  of  feudalism  which  have  appeared  since  the  early  investiga- 
tions of  Waitz  and  Roth. 


208  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

chase  faitMul  support.  They  lay,  besides,  in  Anstrasia, 
at  a  distance  from  the  country  which  was  in  especial  need 
of  defence.  There  was  in  the  case  but  one  resoui'ce 
open — the  extensive  lands  of  the  church,  amounting,  in 
some  parts  of  the  kingdom,  to  one-third  of  the  territory. 

It  had  long  been  the  custom  for  the  state  to  make  use 
of  church  lands,  a  bit  here  and  there,  to  meet  some  spe- 
cial need ;  but  now,  in  the  face  of  this  great  necessity, 
there  was,  seemingly,  a  more  extensive  confiscation,  for 
which  Charles  Martel  secured  an  e\il  place  in  the  mem- 
ory of  the  church.  It  was  not,  however,  a  confiscation  in 
form,  and  his  successors  succeeded  in  making  a  definite 
arrangement  with  the  church,  regulating  and  sanctioning, 
in  a  limited  way,  this  use  of  church  lands. 

The  i:)recarice  furnished  a  convenient  tenure  for  the 
piirpose.  By  it  the  ownership  of  the  church  was,  in 
form,  preserved  by  the  payment  of  a  small  fee,  while  the 
use  of  the  land  passed  to  the  aj)pointee  of  the  king. 
These  grants  became  technically  known  in  the  church  re- 
cords as  iwecarice  verho  regis,  grants  at  the  royal  com- 
mand. 

As  the  object  was  to  maintain  a  cavalry  force,  the 
prince  bestowed  these  grants  of  land  upon  his  vassals 
who  were  bound  to  him  by  a  personal  bond  of  especial 
fidelity  and  service,  and  who  were  to  be  enabled,  by  the 
additional  income  secured  them  by  the  grant,  to  furnish 
mounted  soldiers  to  the  arm3^  They  di\dded  the  land 
among  their  ovm.  vassals  in  the  same  way,  and  at  this 
time  the  word  "  benefice  "  came  into  gradual  use  for  the 
land  granted. 

In  this  way  the  first  steps  were  taken  toward  uniting 
these  two  institutions  into  a  single  one,  and  toward  in- 
troducing the  special  obligation  of  military  service  as  a 
condition  on  which  the  land  was  held.  But  it  must  not 
be  understood  that  the  process  was  by  any  means  com- 


THE  FEUDAL   SYSTEM  209 

pleted  as  yet.  It  was  a  very  slow  and  a  very  gradual 
change,  extending  tliroughout  tlie  wliole  Carolingian 
period. 

The  efforts  which  were  made  by  Charlemagne  to  re- 
form, or  rather  to  enforce,  the  military  system  of  the 
kingdom,  had  a  very  important  influence  in  the  same  di- 
rection. With  the  growth  in  size  of  the  Frankish  empire, 
requiring  campaigns  at  such  great  distances  and  almost 
constantly,  their  original  military  system  of  unpaid  ser- 
vice from  all  the  freemen,  which  was  common  to  all  the 
German  tribes,  had  come  to  be  a  serious  burden  upon 
the  Franks.  Indeed,  the  poorer  citizens,  who  could  no 
longer  bear  it,  were  strifiug  to  escape  from  it  in  every 
possible  way,  and  the  armies  threatened  to  disappear. 
This  danger  Charlemagne  tried  to  overcome  by  a  series 
of  enactments.  He  allowed  several  of  the  poorer  free- 
men to  unite  in  arming  and  maintaining  one  of  their 
number  in  the  army.  He  directed  that  vassals  of  private 
individuals  must  perform  military  service  as  the  vassals 
of  the  king  did,  thus  trying  to  hold  to  their  duty  those 
who  had  sought  to  escape  from  it  b}'  such  an  arrange- 
ment. He  also  ordained  that  the  lord  should  be  held 
responsible  for  the  equipment  and  appearance  in  the 
field  of  his  vassals,  or  should  pay  the  fine  for  their  failure 
to  appear.  Finally,  when  these  proved  of  no  avail,  he 
issued  an  ordinance  which  apparently  brought  a  great 
principle  of  human  nature  to  his  aid  by  allowing  the  vas- 
sals to  come  into  the  field  under  the  coinmand  of  their 
lords  instead  of  with  the  general  levy  of  the  country 
under  the  count.  The  natural  desire  of  the  lord  for  in- 
fluence and  consideration  would  make  him  wish  to  appear 
at  the  head  of  as  large  and  fine  a  body  of  vassals  as  pos- 
sible, and  the  expedient  seems  to  have  proved  successful 
enough  to  be  adopted  regularly  in  the  generations  follow- 
ing. But  the  result  of  it  was  to  make  the  army  more  and 
14 


210  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOlSr 

more  completely  a  feudal  army,  and  tliougli  it  seems  cer- 
tain that  the  freemen,  who  remained  throughout  the 
whole  feudal  period  holders  of  land  and  free  laborers  in 
considerable  numbers  outside  the  feudal  system,  were 
never  excused  from  military  duty,  and  were  summoned 
occasionally  to  actual  service,  still  the  state  in  the  main 
dej)ended  no  longer  upon  citizens  for  its  army,  but  upon 
vassals  who  served  as  a  duty  growing  out  of  their  hold- 
ing of  land. 

In  this  way  one  important  duty  of  the  citizen,  that  of 
defending  the  community,  was  transformed  from  a  public 
obligation  into  a  matter  of  private  contract,  and  became 
one  of  the  ordinary  conditions  upon  which  lands  were 
held. 

A  like  transformation  took  place  during  this  same  time 
in  regard  to  other  functions  of  the  state — the  judicial,  for 
example — which  also  passed  into  the  hands  of  private 
individuals  and  became  attached  to  the  land.  In  this 
way  the  great  fiefs  came  to  possess  what  the  French 
feudal  law  called  "justice  ''—jurisdictio — that  is,  full  sov- 
ereignty, so  that  the  state  was  practically  excluded  from 
all  contact  with  any  persons  residing  within  the  limits 
of  the  fief.  The  process  by  which  this  transformation 
was  accomplished,  in  respect  to  the  other  functions  of  the 
state,  is  by  no  means  so  clear  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  the 
military.  In  the  instance,  for  example,  of  the  judicial 
power  of  the  state,  there  is  probably  no  subject  connected 
with  the  origin  of  the  feudal  system  which  is  still  the 
subject  of  so  much  controversy,  and  on  which  so  many 
varpng  views  are  still  maintained,  as  upon  the  way  in 
which  this  power  passed  into  private  hands. 

The  process  was  undoubtedly  largely  aided  by  the 
"immunities."  These  were  gi-ants  of  privilege  to 
churches  or  to  private  individuals,  by  virtue  of  Avhich  the 
ordinary  officers  of  the  state  were  forbidden  all  entry 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  211 

upon  the  specified  domain,  and  tlie  owner  took  the  place 
of  the  officers  in  reference  to  the  state.'  This  did  not  at 
once  remove  these  estates  from  the  control  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  landowner  became  independent  of  the  ordi- 
nary officers,  but  not  of  the  state,  whose  officer  he  became 
for  his  own  land,  though  often  possessing,  instead  of  the 
state,  the  entire  judicial  revenue,  but  it  did  undoubtedly 
favor  the  development  of  private  jurisdiction  and  virtual 
independence,  and  probably  in  many  cases  fully  accoimts 
for  the  sovereignty  of  the  fief.  The  government,  which 
found  it  so  difficult  during  this  time  to  control  its  own 
officers  and  to  keep  the  functions  of  the  state  in  opera- 
tion by  their  means,  would  often  find  it  entirely  impos- 
sible to  prevent  the  great  landowner  who  had  received 
a  grant  of  immunity  from  throwing  off  all  dependence 
upon  the  government  and  setting  up  a  state  of  his 
own. 

In  the  case  of  many  fiefs,  however,  no  immunity  ex- 
isted, and  the  process  must  have  been  a  different  one. 
Our  knowledge  of  the  actual  process  is  so  slight  that 
almost  every  one  of  the  various  theories  which  have  been 
advanced  to  explain  it  has  some  reasonable  foundation, 
but  the  one  which  seems  probable  for  the  majority  of 
cases  is  that  of  Beaudouin,  who  maintains  that  it  was,  in 
reality,  a  usurpation.^ 

The  holder  of  the  fief  was  locally  strong.  He  could 
and  did  maintain  some  real  degree  of  order  and  security. 
It  was  by  virtue  of  this  fact  that  his  power  had  been  de- 
veloped and  continued  to  be  obeyed.  In  theory  the 
state  was  absolute.  It  was  supposed  to  control  almost 
every  detail  of  life.  And  this  theory  of  the  power  of  the 
state  continued  to  exist  and  to  be  recognized  in  the  days 

'  See  tlie  translation  of  a  charter  of  immuuity  granted  by  Charle- 
magne, in  Emerton,  Tntroductio)i  to  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  24G. 
'  E.  Beaudouin,  La  Recommendation  et  la  Justice  seigneuriale. 


212  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  the  most  complete  feudalism.  But  actually  the  state 
could  do  nothing.  Its  real  power  was  at  the  opposite 
extreme  from  its  theoretical.  The  great  difficulty  of  in- 
tercommunication rendered  it  impossible  for  the  state  to 
bring  its  power  into  direct  contact  with  all  parts  of  the 
country.  It  had  no  strong  and  organized  body  of  officers 
on  whom  it  could  depend.  Every  officer,  military  or 
administrative,  was  a  local  magnate  doing  his  best  to 
throw  o&  the  control  of  the  state,  and  using  his  official  po- 
sition to  aid  him  in  this  purpose.  There  was  no  strong 
feeling  of  unity  among  the  people  which  it  could  call  to 
its  aid.  There  were  no  common  feelings  or  ideas  or  in- 
terests which  bound  the  dweller  at  the  mouth  of  the  Loire 
to  the  dweller  at  the  mouth  of  the  Seine.  Patriotism  and 
a  common  national  feeling  were  wanting.  Everything 
was  local  and  personal.  Even  in  the  church  was  this  the 
case  in  the  tenth  century,  Europe  at  large  hardly  know- 
ing who  was  pope  in  Rome,  and  the  common  organization 
almost  falling  to  pieces,  while  in  Rome  itself  the  papacy 
sank  to  its  lowest  point  of  degradation,  a  prey  to  local 
faction  and  made  to  serve  local  interests.  If  this  were 
true  of  the  church,  much  more  was  it  true  of  the  state, 
which  had  no  such  general  organization  and  no  such  basis 
of  common  feelings.  The  sovereign  of  the  moment  had 
only  such  an  amount  of  power  as  he  might  derive  from 
lands  directly  in  his  hands,  that  is,  from  his  own  local 
fief.  The  great  advantage  which  the  first  Capetians  had 
over  their  Carolingian  rivals  was,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
they  had  a  very  strong  local  power  of  this  sort,  while  the 
Carolingians  had  really  none  ;  but  even  this  power  which 
the  first  Capetians  had  was  not  enough  to  enable  them  to 
exercise  the  functions  of  a  real  government  within  the 
other  large  fiefs.  Certainly  there  was  no  such  power  in 
the  hands  of  the  later  Carolingians.  These  functions, 
which  the   government  was  powerless  to  exercise,  fell 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  213 

naturally  into  the  hands  of  the  local  magnate  and  were 
exercised  by  him. 

Sometimes  it  was  a  real  usurpation,  the  baron  assum- 
ing and  continuing  offices  which  the  state  should  have 
discharged.  More  often,  no  doubt,  it  was  a  transforma- 
tion of  duties  which  the  state  had  once  lodged  in  his 
hands,  as  an  immunity,  perhaps,  or  in  making  him  its 
own  administrative  officer,  duke  or  count,  a  transforma- 
tion of  such  a  sort  that  the  baron  no  longer  performed 
these,  as  a  representative  of  the  state,  but  by  virtue  of 
his  own  property  right,  and  the  persons  living  within  his 
domain,  fulfilled  these  duties,  no  longer  as  obligations 
due  to  the  state,  but  as  personal  duties  due  to  their  im- 
mediate lord.  Among  these  there  would  usually  be  vas- 
sals of  his  whose  ancestors  had  dwelt  in  the  county  when 
his  ancestors  were  counts  by  the  king's  appointment,  and 
really  represented  the  government.  In  those  days  they 
had  attended  the  count's  court  as  citizens  discharging  a 
public  duty.  In  every  intervening  generation  the  same 
court  had  been  held  and  attended,  vmdergoing  no  pro- 
nounced change  at  any  one  time.  But  in  the  end  it  had 
been  entirely  transformed,  and  in  attending  it  now  the 
descendants  of  the  earlier  citizens  were  meeting  a  private 
obligation  into  which  they  had  entered  as  vassals  of  a 
lord. 

The  local  public  court,  no  doubt,  in  being  thus  trans- 
formed into  a  feudal  court,  by  the  usurpation  of  the 
baron  or  by  the  grant  of  the  king,  retained  its  funda- 
mental principles  unchanged.  The  vassals  came  together 
to  form  the  court,  as  formerly  the  citizens  had  done,  ac- 
companied by  such  free  citizens  of  the  district  as  might 
still  remain  outside  the  vassal  relations.  They  j^ro- 
nounced  judgment  in  cases  concerning  one  another  by 
common  consent,  the  verdict  of  "  peers,"  and  they 
adopted,  by  general  agreement,  measures  of  the  char- 


214  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

acter  of  local  legislation,  as  the  older  local  assembly  had 
done  whose  place  they  had  taken.  But,  in  relation  to 
the  public  authority  of  the  state,  the  transformation  was 
a  great  one,  and  the  whole  point  of  view  had  been 
changed. 

The  geographical  extent  of  territory,  subject  in  this 
way  to  the  lord's  "justice,"  would  depend  upon  a  great 
variety  of  circumstances  largely  peculiar  to  each  case ; 
certainly  it  depended,  only  in  the  most  remote  way,  upon 
any  act  of  the  nominal  sovereign's.  The  most  decisive 
of  these  circumstances  would  be  the  personal  ability  of 
the  successive  generations  of  lords,  their  success  in  pre- 
serving some  considerable  amount  of  order  and  security, 
and  making  their  government  really  respected  over  a 
larger  or  smaller  area,  and  their  success  in  compelling 
outlying  landholders  of  less  strength  to  recognize  their 
supremac}^  If  they  were  good  organizers  and  strong 
fighters,  especially  the  last,  their  lands  were  constantly 
enlarging,  until  they  reached  the  boundaries  of  other 
territories  which  had  been  formed  in  the  same  way.  If 
they  were  undecided  and  weak,  their  subjects  and  their 
rivals  took  speedy  advantage  of  it.  Vassals  lost  no  op- 
portunity to  throw  off  their  dependence  and  assume  for 
themselves  the  rights  of  sovereignty,  and  neighboring 
great  barons  did  not  hesitate  to  entice  or  to  force  a  rival's 
vassals  to  change  their  allegiance,  and  thus  to  enlarge  their 
own  lands  at  their  rival's  expense,  ^^^len  the  feudal 
system  and  the  feudal  law  became  more  definitely  fixed, 
these  things  became  less  frequent,  but  they  never  entirely 
ceased,  and  the  days  of  formative  feudalism  were  times 
when  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  reigned  su- 
preme. 

As  the  starting-point  of  such  a  feudal  territory  there 
w^as  often,  not  a  fief,  but  an  estate  of  allodial  land,  that  is, 
land  which  the  original  owner  had  held  in  fee-simple  and 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  215 

not  as  a  benefice  from  some  lord.  There  was  always  pres- 
ent in  feudal  times,  also,  a  strong  tendency  to  turn  bene- 
fices into  allodial  land,  tliat  is,  for  the  vassal  to  throw 
off  all  semblance  of  dependence  upon  his  lord,  and  be- 
come independent,  acknowledging  in  many  cases  not 
even  a  theoretical  dependence  upon  anyone,  the  state  it- 
self included.  Such  allodial  lands,  of  whatever  origin, 
might  be  just  as  thoroughly  feudal  as  any  other,  and,  if 
large  enough,  always  were,  that  is,  they  were  subdivided 
among  vassals,  and  governed  and  regulated  according  to 
feudal  principles,  but  the  feudal  law  generally  recognized 
their  independence  of  outside  control.  Examples  of 
such  lands  are  those  which  the  German  feudal  law  styled 
"  sun  fiefs,"  fiefs  held  of  the  sun,  and,  in  France,  those 
of  a  part  of  the  counts  and  others  who  styled  themselves 
"  counts  by  the  grace  of  God."  In  many  cases  preten- 
sions of  this  sort  were  not  made  good  against  the  grow- 
ing strength  of  the  government ;  in  others  they  were,  and 
the  little  states  were  distinctly  recognized  by  the  general 
government  as  independent  sovereignties.  The  little 
kingdom  of  Yvetot,  whose  memory  has  been  preserved 
in  literature,  is  the  case  of  a  fief  which  became  indepen- 
dent, and  the  little  territory  of  Boisbelle-Henrichemont, 
in  central  France,  maintained  a  recognized  independence 
until  1766,  when  the  last  seigneur  sold  his  state  to  the 
king. 

In  general,  from  the  tenth  to  the  beginning  at  least  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  the  political  aspect  of  western 
Europe  was  thoroughly  feudal,  and  even  in  those  parts 
of  the  coimtry  wlier©^^41«dial  lands  largely  predominated, 
as,  for  example,  in  central  France,  the  state  was  as  weak 
as  elsewhere,  and  the  real  government  as  completely 
local.  The  small  allodial  proprietor,  not  strong  enough 
to  usurp  for  himself  the  right  of  "justice,"  was  subject 
to  the  "justice"  of  the  feudal  lord  of  the  locality,  and 


216  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION" 

sometimes  even  to  the  payment  of  dues  that  were  dis- 
tinctly feudal,  though  he  might  not  be  forced  into  the 
position  of  a  full  vassal. 

We  have  endeavored  to  present  in  this  sketch,  as  fully 
as  possible  in  the  space  at  our  command,  the  rise  of  the 
feudal  system.  Comparatively  insignificant  practices,  of 
private  and  illegal  origin,  which  had  arisen  in  the  later 
Roman  empire,  and  which  were  continued  in  the  early 
Prankish  kingdom,  had  been  developed,  under  the  press- 
ure of  public  need,  into  a  great  political  organization 
extending  over  the  whole  "West,  and  virtually  supplant- 
ing the  national  government.  The  public  need  which 
had  made  this  development  necessary  was  the  need  of 
security  and  protection.  Men  had  been  obliged  to  take 
refuge  in  the  feudal  castle,  because  the  power  of  the 
state  had  broken  down.  This  break-down  of  the  state, 
its  failure  to  discharge  its  ordinary  functions,  was  not  so 
much  due  to  a  lack  of  personal  ability  on  the  part  of  the 
king,  as  to  the  circumstances  of  the  time,  and  to  the  ina- 
bility of  the  ruling  race  as  a  whole  to  rise  above  them. 
The  difficulty  of  intercommunication,  the  break-down  of 
the  old  military  and  judicial  organization,  partly  on  ac- 
count of  this  difficulty,  thus  depriving  the  state  of  its  two 
hands,  the  lack  of  general  ideas  and  common  feelings 
and  interests,  seen  for  example  in  the  scanty  commerce 
of  the  time,  the  almost  total  absence,  in  a  word,  of  all  the 
sources  from  which  every  government  must  draw  its  life 
and  strength,  this  general  condition  of  society  was  the 
controlling  force  which  created  the  feudal  system.  The 
Germans,  in  succeeding  to  the  empire  of  Rome,  had  in- 
herited a  task  which  Avas  as  jet  too  great  for  the  most 
of  them,  Merovingian  and  Carolingiau  alike.  Only  by  a 
long  process  of  experience  and  education  were  they  to 
succeed  in  understanding  its  problems  and  mastering  its 
difficulties.     This  is  only  saying  in  a  new  form  what  we 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  217 

have  before  said  in  other  connections,  that  the  coming  in 
of  the  Germans  must  of  necessity  have  been  followed  by 
a  temporary  decline  of  civilization.  This  was  Just  as  true 
of  government  and  political  order  as  of  everything  else, 
and  the  feudal  system  is  merely,  in  politics,  what  the 
miracle  lives  and  scholasticism  are  in  literature  and 
science. 

These  last  paragraphs  have,  perhaps,  given  some  idea 
of  the  condition  of  things  in  the  completely  feudalized 
state,  and  of  the  character  of  feudalism  as  a  political  or- 
ganization. 

The  perfected  form  Avhich  the  lawyers  finally  gave  to 
the  feudal  theory  as  a  matter  of  land  law  '  and  of  social 
rank  is  imdoubtedly  the  source  of  the  popular  idea  that 
the  feudal  system  was  a  much  more  definitely  arranged 
and  systematized  organization  than  it  ever  was  in  prac- 
tice. Among  us  Blackstone's  Commentaries  are  prob- 
ably, more  than  any  other  single  source,  responsible 
for  this  impression,  as  they  are  for  other  ideas  of  history 
which  are  not  altogether  correct.  He  says,  speaking  of 
the  introduction  of  feudalism  as  a  result  of  the  Norman 
conquest : 

"  This  new  polity  therefore  seems  not  to  have  been  im- 
posed by  the  conqueror,  but  nationally  and  freely  adopted 
by  the  general  assembly  of  the  Avhole  realm,  in  the  same 
manner  as  other  nations  of  Europe  had  before  adopted 
it,  upon  the  same  principle  of  self-secmity,  and,  in  par- 
ticular, they  had  the  recent  example  of  the  French  nation 

'  Of  the  direct  results  of  feudalism  which  have  a  continued  influence 
at  the  present  time  those  relating  to  land  laws  are  the  most  immediately 
felt  in  the  United  States,  not  all  the  old  forms  and  principles  having 
yet  been  changed.  See  Taylor,  Origin  and  Oroicth  of  the  English  Con- 
stitntion,  p.  48.  For  a  special  instance,  see  the  limitations  iu  the  mat- 
ter of  conveyance  mentioned  iu  Pollock,  Land  Laws,  p.  64. 


218  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

before  their  eyes,  wliicli  had  gradually  surrendered  up 
all  its  allodial  or  free  lands  into  the  king's  hands,  who  re- 
stored them  to  the  owners  as  a  heneficium  or  feud,  to  be 
held  to  them  and  such  of  their  heirs  as  they  previously 
nominated  to  the  king,  and  thus  by  degrees  all  the  allo- 
dial estates  in  France  were  converted  into  feuds,  and  the 
freemen  became  the  vassals  of  the  crown.  The  only  dif- 
ference between  this  change  of  tenure  in  France  and 
that  in  England,  was,  that  the  former  was  effected  grad- 
ually, by  the  consent  of  private  persons  ;  the  latter  was 
done  all  at  once,  all  over  England,  by  the  common  con- 
sent of  the  nation." 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  no  such  facts  as  these  ever 
occurred,  either  in  France  or  in  England,  but  the  lawyers 
certainly  did  form  such  a  theory  as  this  of  the  feudal 
state,  and  from  its  influence  came  the  popular  notion  of 
what  sort  of  an  organization  the  feudal  state  was. 

According  to  this  theory  the  king  is  vested  with  the 
ownership  of  all  the  soil  of  the  kingdom.  But,  like  the 
private  owner  of  a  vast  estate,  he  cannot  cultivate  it  all 
under  his  own  immediate  direction.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  has  certain  great  expenses  to  meet,  and  public  func- 
tions to  perform,  by  virtue  of  his  position  as  the  head 
of  the  state.  He  must  provide  for  defence  against  the 
national  enemies,  he  must  determine  and  enforce  the 
laws,  provide  a  currency,  maintain  the  highways,  and  so 
on.  The  resources  to  enable  him  to  meet  these  obliga- 
tions must  be  derived  from  the  land  of  the  kingdom 
which  he  owns.  Accordingly  he  parcels  out  the  kingdom 
into  a  certain  number  of  large  divisions,  each  of  which 
he  grants  to  a  single  man,  who  gives  a  peculiarly  binding 
promise  to  assume  a  certain  specified  portion  of  these 
public  obligations  in  return  for  the  land  which  is  grant- 
ed him.  So  long  as  he  fulfils  these  duties  he  continues 
to  hold  the  lands,  and  his  heirs  after  him  on  the  same 


THE  FEUDAL   SYSTEM  219 

terms.  If  he  refuses  to  meet  Ms  obligations,  or  neglects 
them,  the  king  may  resume  his  lands  and  grant  them  to 
some  more  faithful  vassal.  Together,  these  men  con- 
stitute the  great  barons,  or  grand  feudatories,  or  peers  of 
the  kingdom,  and  by  their  united  services  the  state  gets 
its  business  performed. 

In  the  same  way  these  great  barons  divide  their  land 
among  vassals,  whose  united  services  enable  them  to 
meet  their  obligations  to  the  king.  These  vassals  sub- 
divide again,  by  a  like  process  of  "  subinfeudation,"  and 
so  on  down  to  the  knight's  fee,  or  lowest  subdivision  of 
the  feudal  system — a  piece  of  land  large  enough  to  sup- 
port and  arm  a  single  warrior  of  noble  condition. 

There  is,  undoubtedly,  a  general  correspondence  of 
this  theory  to  the  actual  facts  which  prevailed  from  the 
tenth  century  on.  Public  duties  were  almost  wholly 
transformed  into  private  services.  The  state  did  depend, 
to  a  very  large  extent,  upon  the  holders  of  land  for  the 
performance  of  its  functions.  The  land  of  the  kingdom 
did  tend  to  become  feudal,  held  by  vassals  upon  a  tenure 
of  service,  and  there  was  a  tendency  in  the  feudal  system 
to  develop  into  a  hierarchical  organization  of  regulated 
grades,  from  the  king  down  to  the  smallest  noble. 

But  not  one  of  these  tendencies  was  completely  realized 
in  the  actual  feudalism  of  any  country  of  Europe,  and 
there  never  was  anywhere  such  a  regular  organization  as 
the  theory  supposes.  It  is  perfectly  easy  to  see,  from  the 
way  in  which  the  feudal  system  came  into  existence,  its 
long  and  slow  growth  by  private  arrangements  to  meet 
local  needs,  that  it  could  have  no  settled  and  uniform 
constitution,  even  for  its  general  features,  and  for  minor 
details  it  could  have  no  general  system  of  law  with  fixed 
rules  which  prevailed  everywhere. 

Its  law  must  be  purely  customary  law,  formed  by  each 
locality  for  itself,  its  rules  determined  by  the  local  cus- 


220  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

torns  and  usages  wliicli  had  grown  into  precedents.  It 
was  not  the  result  of  general  legislation,  indeed  it  may  be 
said  without  much  exaggeration  that,  during  the  feudal 
period  proper  there  was  no  such  thing  as  legislation  of 
any  sort.  "We  have,  therefore,  no  general  feudal  law,  but 
we  have  a  thousand  local  systems  of  law,  having  certain 
general  featm-es  alike,  but  diflering  more  or  less  widely 
from  one  another  on  matters  of  detail.  Even  such  gen- 
eral codes  as  the  As-sii^cs  de  Jeni^aJcin  or  the  Libri  Fcudo- 
rum  are  not  merely  now  and  then  at  variance  with  one 
another  on  important  points,  but  they  are  in  many  re- 
spects theoretical  treatises,  embodying  an  ideal  law  rather 
than  stating  practices  which  were  widely  in  use.  The 
general  use  into  which  some  of  these  codes  came  in  the 
hands  of  the  lawj'ers,  after  there  began  to  be  professional 
lawyers,  tended  to  create  a  uniformity  of  practice  which 
had  not  existed  earlier  ;  but  this  was  only  from  the  thir- 
teenth century  on,  when  in  most  countries  feudalism  Avas 
losing  its  political  significance  and  was  passing  into  a 
mere  system  of  land  law  and  of  social  rank. 

In  the  days  when  feudalism  was  at  its  height  as  a 
political  organization,  the  way  in  which  the  lord's  coui-t 
settled  a  particular  question,  or  in  Avhich  private  agree- 
ment regulated  a  particular  service,  was  final,  and  the 
custom  thus  formed  in  the  locality  became  the  law  for 
that  locality.  These  decisions  and  regulations  might, 
and  did,  difier  greatly  in  different  places.  Says  Beau- 
manoir,  one  of  the  thii-teenth-century  lawyers,  Avhose 
Coutume  de  Beauvoisis  became  one  of  the  law-books  in 
general  use  :  "  There  are  not  two  castellauies  in  France 
which  use  the  same  law  in  every  case." '  Indeed,  it  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say  that  there  was  no  uniformity 
of  practice  even  in  the  most  general  features  of  the  sys- 
tem. 

'  Vol.  I.,  p.  14.     Burgnofs  edition. 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  221 

There  was  nowliere  any  series  of  great  baronies  which 
covered  the  area  of  a  kingdom.'  The  hinds  hekl  by  the 
so-called  twelve  peers  by  no  means  made  up  the  whole 
of  France.  Some  fiefs,  not  ranked  among  these,  were  as 
large  or  larger,  like  the  county  of  Anjou  or  the  county 
of  Brittany.  Some  of  the  peers  held  only  a  portion  of 
their  land  of  the  king.  The  count  of  Champagne  was 
the  king's  vassal  for  only  a  fraction  of  his  lands.  His 
great  territory  was  a  complex,  brought  together  into  a 
single  hand,  and  held  of  nine  suzerains  besides  the  king, 
of  seven  ecclesiastical  lords,  the  German  emperor,  and 
the  duke  of  Biu'gimdy.  The  king  granted  fiefs  of  every 
size,  and  had  vassals  of  every  rank  and  title,  and  many 
subvassals  of  others  held  small  fiefs  directly  from  the 
king.  In  Germany  the  number  of  very  small  fiefs  held 
immediately  of  the  emperor  was  great.  Suzerains  also, 
even  kings  and  emperors,  held  fiefs  of  their  own  vassals. 
The  same  homage,  for  the  same  fief,  might  be  paid  to 
two  lords  at  the  same  time,  or  a  fief  might  be  held  by 
two  or  more  vassals.  Not  merely  land,  but  all  sorts  of 
things  having  any  value— offices,  tolls,  and  privileges — 
were  made  into  fiefs,  and  the  variations  of  form  and 
character  in  fiefs  were  almost  infinite.  And  yet  large 
portions  of  the  land  in  every  kingdom  remained  allodial, 
and  were  never  held  under  any  actual  feudal  tenure. 

Gradations  of  rank  in  the  nobility  came  to  be  regular 
and  definite  in  later  times,  but  ,they  were  not  so  when 
feudalism  was  supreme,  and  the  size  or  importance  of 
the  fief  had  but  little  to  do  with  its  title  and  rank.  Yis- 
counts  had  counts  as  vassals.  Some  mere  lordships  were 
as  large  as  the  fiefs  held  by  counts,  and  for  a  fief  to 
change  its  title,  while  remaining  the  same  itself,  w^as  of 

'  For  an  interesting  brief  statement  of  conflicting  practices  in  feudal- 
ism, see  the  note  on  p.  213  of  tlie  text  of  Longnon's  Atlas  Eistonque  de 
la  France. 


222  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

very  frequent  occurrence,  as  in  the  case  of  the  county  of 
Brittany  which  became  a  duchy. 

In  general,  we  may  say  that  the  feudal  system  was 
confusion  roughly  organized,  and  it  would  be  impossible 
within  these  limits,  even  if  our  plan  permitted,  to  give 
any  satisfactory  idea  of  its  details.  It  is  doubtful  if  it 
would  be  possible,  within  any  reasonable  limits,  to  give 
a  detailed  account  of  feudal  usages  which  would  not  con- 
vey a  wrong  impression,  or  which  would  be  true  of  more 
than  limited  regions. 

Besides  these  differences  of  detail,  the  national  feudal 
systems,  which  took  shape  in  the  different  countries  of 
Europe,  differed  more  or  less  widely  from  one  another  in 
many  points  of  general  constitution.  The  history  of  feu- 
dalism runs  a  different  course  in  the  various  states,  and 
the  permanent  influence  w^hich  it  exercised  on  national  in- 
stitutions and  history  is  distinct  for  each,  as  will  be  evi- 
dent when  the  formation  of  the  modern  nations  is  reached. 

It  is  evident  that  a  system  of  this  sort  would  be  a  seri- 
ous obstacle  in  the  reconstruction  of  a  strong  and  con- 
solidated state.  It  is  a  fact  stiU  more  familiar  to  us  that 
the  legal  and  social  privileges,  the  shadow  of  a  once 
dominant  feudahsm,  which  the  state  allowed  to  remain 
or  was  forced  to  tolerate,  secured  for  it  a  universal  popu- 
lar hatred  and  condemnation.  But  these  facts  ought  not 
to  obscure  for  us  the  great  work  which  fell  to  the  share 
of  feudalism  in  the  general  development  of  civilization. 
The  preceding  account  should  have  given  some  indica- 
tion, at  least,  of  what  this  work  was.  The  feudal  castle, 
torn  to  pieces  by  the  infuriated  mob  of  revolted  peasants, 
as  the  shelter  of  tyrannous  privileges,  was  originally 
built  by  the  willing  and  anxious  labor  of  their  ancestors 
as  their  only  refuge  from  worse  evils  than  the  lord's  op- 
pression. 


THE   FEUDAL   SYSTEM  223 

We  have  seen,  earlier,  the  great  danger  which  threat- 
ened the  political  unity  which  Rome  had  established  in 
the  West  in  consequence  of  the  German  invasions ;  how 
they  threatened  to  break  up  the  Western  Empire  into 
separate  and  unconnected  fragments ;  and  how  the  in- 
fluence of  the  church  and  of  the  idea  of  Rome  availed  to 
keep  up  some  general  consciousness  of  unity,  and  of  a 
common  whole  to  which  they  all  belonged.  But  these 
influences,  however  strong  in  maintaining  an  ideal  union 
of  states,  could  hardly  be  of  much  value  within  the  bounds 
of  the  separate  states.  The  same  causes  of  separation, 
however,  were  at  work  there.  There  were  so  few  common 
bonds  between  them  that  it  was  as  hard  for  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  difi'erent  parts  of  Gaul  to  keep  alive  any  real 
feeling  of  national  unity,  as  it  was  for  them  to  realize  any 
common  relationship  with  the  men  of  Italy.  As  the 
central  governments  of  the  different  states  succumbed 
more  and  more  to  the  difficulties  of  their  situation,  and 
became  more  and  more  powerless  to  exercise  any  actual 
control  at  a  distance  from  the  court,  the  danger  was 
great  and  real  that  the  state  would  fall  apart  into  little 
fragments  owning  no  common  allegiance,  and  that  the 
advanced  political  organization  which  civilization  had 
reached  would  dissolve  again  into  the  original  elements 
from  which  it  had  formerly  been  constnicted — that  Gaul, 
for  example,  would  revert  to  the  condition  from  which 
the  Romans  had  rescued  it.  From  this  danger  Europe 
was  saved  by  the  feudal  system. 

Feudalism  is  a  form  of  political  organization  which 
allows  the  state  to  separate  into  as  minute  fragments  as 
it  will,  vii-tually  independent  of  one  another  and  of  the 
state,  without  the  total  destruction  of  its  own  life  with 
which  such  an  experience  would  seem  to  threaten  every 
general  government. 

When  we  look  at  the  actual  condition  of  things  in  a 


224  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

feudal  state,  its  anarchy  and  confusion,  we  can  hardly 
see  how  it  would  be  possible  for  disintegration  to  go  fur- 
ther, or  the  destruction  of  the  government  of  the  state  to 
be  more  complete.  And  yet  there  is  an  enormous  dif- 
ference between  a  society  which  has  thrown  off  all  com- 
mon bonds,  and  actually  broken  into  fragments  that  are 
wholly  isolated,  and  another  in  which,  however  fragmen- 
tary in  appearance,  a  lively  and  constantly  recognized 
theory  keeps  in  remembrance  the  rights  and  prerogatives 
of  the  central  government,  and  asserts  without  ceasing 
that  there  is  a  vital  bond  of  union  between  all  the  frag- 
ments. 

It  was  this  that  feudalism  did.  It  was  an  an'angement 
suited  to  crude  and  barbarous  times,  by  which  an  ad- 
vanced political  organization  belonging  to  a  more  orderly 
civilization  might  be  carried  through  such  times  without 
destruction,  though  unsuited  to  them,  and  likely  to  perish 
if  left  to  its  own  resources.  There  is  no  intention  of 
asseiiing  in  this  proposition  that  such  a  system  is 
ideally  the  best  way  to  accomplish  this  result,  or  that  it 
could  not  have  been  done,  perhaps  with  less  time  and 
expense,  by  some  other  expedient,  but  only  that  this  is 
what  it  did  do  historically,  and  possibly  further  that  the 
general  history  of  the  world  shows  it  to  be  a  natui"al 
method  in  similar  cases. 

The  phrase  of  Hegel,  that  the  feudal  system  was  a 
protest  of  barbarism  against  barbarism,  and  that  of 
Henri  Martin,  that  it  concealed  in  its  bosom  the  weapons 
with  which  it  would  be  itself  one  day  smitten,  are  strictly 
accurate.'     It  kept  alive  the  theory  of  the  state,  with  the 

'  Is  this  a  characteristic  of  every  phase  in  the  political  development 
of  the  race  ?  I  translate  the  following  suggestive  sentence  of  M.  Monod's 
from  the  Rfvue  Historique,  Vol.  XLIII.,p.  95:  "As  we  can  follow 
through  the  feudal  epoch  the  development  of  the  monarchical  idea 
which  was  to  destroy  feudalism,  and  as  we  can  follow  across  the  mon- 
archical epoch  the  development  of  the  national  idea  which  was  to  throw 


THE  FEUDAL  SYSTEM  22;*) 

king  at  its  liead,  in  the  possession  of  almost  absolute 
rights  and  prerogatives. 

And  this  was  never  completely  reduced  to  the  condi- 
tion of  a  mere  theory;  for  themselves  the  kings  seem 
never  to  have  recognized,  in  the  worst  days,  the  claims 
to  independence  which  the  great  nobles  advanced,  and 
many  circumstances — accident,  the  rivalry  of  one  baron 
with  another,  the  d}dng  out  of  a  line,  a  dispute  between 
vassal  and  lord — presented  opportunities  for  interference 
of  which  even  the  weakest  kings  availed  themselves,  and 
so  added  to  theory  something  in  the  way  of  actual  fact. 
^Mien  we  reach  the  point  where  there  is  the  most  com- 
plete recognition  by  the  kings  of  the  feudal  law  and  j^riv- 
ileges,  in  the  thu'teenth  century,  we  are  already  at  the 
time  when  they  are  seriously  undermining  the  feudal 
power.'  The  work  of  doing  this,  and  of  recreating  a  cen- 
tral authority,  was  merely  the  process  of  putting  into 
actual  exercise  prerogatives  w^hich  feudalism  had  con- 
tinued to  recognize  as  existing,  though  not  allowing  in 
action.  It  was  simply  the  successful  effort  to  turn  the- 
ories into  facts. 

FeudaUsm  had  hardly  reached  its  height,  and  di'awn 
all  society  into  its  forms,  w^hen  conditions  began  to  pre- 
vail which  made  it  possible  for  a  general  government  to 
exist  for  the  whole  state,  and  to  make  its  power  felt  and 
obeyed  in   distant   localities.     The  moment  that   these 

dynastic  interests  back  into  the  second  place,  so  we  can  follow  across  the 
history  of  the  last  two  centuries  the  development  of  economic  and  in- 
dustrial interests,  the  social  idea,  which  is  destined  to  overthrow  the 
national. " 

'  Germany  occupies,  as  will  be  seen  later,  a  peculiar  position  in  this 
respect,  and  there  feudalism  is  not  overthrown,  as  far  as  the  national 
government  is  concerned,  but  reaches  its  logical  conclusion  and  destroys 
the  state.  But  this  is  not  due  to  any  oon.scions  yielding  to  feudalism  on 
the  part  of  the  sovereign,  nor  to  an}'  peculiar  effort  to  realize  in  facts  the 
feudal  theory,  but  entirely  to  outside  influences  which  prevented  the 
kings  from  accomplishing  what  sliould  have  been  their  natural  work. 
J5 


226  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

conditions  came  into  existence,  feudalism  as'a  political 
system,  and  a  substitute  for  a  central  government,  began 
to  decline.  As  once  all  things  had  conspired  together  to 
build  it  up  when  it  was  needed,  so  now,  because  its  work 
was  (lone,  all  tilings  united  to  pull  it  down.  The  history 
of  its  fall  is  the  history  of  the  formation  of  the  modern 
nations. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE   EMPIEE   AND  THE   PAPACY' 

At  a  time  wlien  tlie  feudal  system  was  at  its  height, 
that  is,  wheu  there  was  great  separation  and  local  iude- 
pendauce,  and  when  the  universal  and  the  common  had 
very  little  power,  the  minds  of  many  men  were  strongly 
held  by  two  theories,  so  general  and  comprehensive  in 
character,  that  it  seems  impossible  that  theyshould  have 
existed  at  such  a  time.  And  yet  they  were  consciously 
held  by  some,  unconsciously  by  almost  all.  These  were 
the  theories  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  and  of  the 
Holy  Eoman  Empire. 

These  theories  had  there  foundation,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  ideas  which  had  grown  up  in  pagan  Rome — the  ideas 
of  the  divinely  ':»idained,  eternal,  and  universal  empire. 
These  ideas  the  Christians  adopted.  We  find  traces  of 
them  in  Christian  writers  from  tlie  first  half  of  the  third 
century  on.  They  found  an  interpretation  for  prophe- 
cies of  the  Old  Testament  in  them.  But  they  modified 
them,  also,  in  consequence  of  the  new  point  of  view  from 
which  they  regarded  them.  For  the  Christian  the  polit- 
ical work  of  Rome  was  not  its  gi'eat  work — not  the  ulti- 
mate end  for  which  it  had  been  founded.  This  was  to 
be  found  in  the  establishment  of  Christianity.     God  had 

1  On  this  Chapter   see  especially  Bryce,    The  Holy  Roman  Empire^ 
Chapters  VII.  to  XIIF.    inclusive,  and  Freeman's  review  of  Bryce  in 

his  essay,    The  Holy  liornan  Empire. 


228  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

allowed  the  universal  and  eternal  political  empire  of 
Eoiue  to  be  created,  that  in  it  might  be  formed  the  uni- 
versal church,  the  true  Civitas  Dei  of  St.  Augustine. 

There  were,  then,  in  the  plan  of  God  for  history,  these 
two  final  organizations,  distinct  in  sphere,  the  universal 
political  organization,  and  the  universal  religious  organ- 
ization. The  one  was  realized  in  facts  by  the  Eoman 
empire ;  the  other  by  the  Catholic  Church ;  and  as  the 
actual  coui'se  of  history  favored  the  continuance  or  the 
revival  of  the  empire,  and  the  more  and  more  definite 
and  perfect  organization  of  the  church  government,  the 
theories  which  they  expressed  grew  in  definiteness  and 
in  their  hold  upon  men.  They  seemed  to  constitute  the 
permanent  plan  of  God  for  history,  and  these  two  powers 
seemed  to  stand  as  the  representatives  of  his  government 
of  the  world.  The  pope  represented  God,  was  his  vicar, 
liis  vicegerent,  in  his  religious  government  of  mankind, 
the  emperor  in  his  political. 

In  the  case  of  the  ecclesiastical  organization  the  facts 
correspond  somewhat  closely  to  the  theory.  There  was 
such  an  empire,  extending,  not  throughout  the  whole 
of  Christendom,  but  throughout  the  whole  of  orthodox 
Christendom,  which  was  to  the  mind  of  that  time  much 
the  same  thing.  The  whole  Western  world  was  united 
under  a  single  head  in  one  great  religious  state.  To  the 
other  part  of  the  theory  the  facts  did  not  correspond  so 
well.  The  political  empire  had  a  direct  authority  only 
in  Germany  and  in  Italy,  though  it  cherished  wider  pre- 
tensions, and  though  these  pretensions  were  not  without 
some  recognition  outside  those  countries,  a  recognition, 
however,  mainly  theoretical.  There  was,  certainly,  in 
both  cases  a  strong  enough  foundation  in  fact  to  lead  an 
ambitious  man,  at  the  head  of  either  of  these  organiza- 
tions, to  desire,  and  attempt  to  gain,  a  more  extended 
realization  of  the  theory. 


THE   EMPIRP]   AND   THE   PAPACY  239 

As  to  the  relation  of  these  two  governments  to  one 
another,  the  dividing  line  between  these  two  empires, 
there  was  no  definite  idea.  Each  laid  claim  to  the  very 
highest  and  widest  rights.  Neither  conld  exercise  his 
power  in  full,  as  he  understood  it,  without  involving  the 
subjection  of  the  other.  Each  had  historical  facts  to 
appeal  to,  which  seemed  to  imply  the  exercise  of  these 
rights  in  their  widest  extent,  and  the  submission  of  the 
rival  poAver  to  them.  But  neither  had  a  clear  case 
against  the  other,  and  neither  was  willing  to  acknowl- 
edge any  inferiority. 

In  such  a  situation  a  conflict  was  inevitable.  As  soon 
as  there  should  come  to  the  head  of  either  church  or  em- 
pire an  able  and  energetic  man,  determined  to  push  his 
claims,  there  was  certain  to  be  a  great  contest,  if  there 
was  at  the  head  of  the  opposing  system,  not  necessarily 
equal  ability,  but  only  determined  resistance.  This  gives 
us  the  elements  of  that  fierce  conflict,  which  plays  so 
large  a  part  in  the  middle  portion  of  medieval  history — ■ 
the  conflict  between  the  papacy  and  the  empire.  It  be- 
gins a  short  time  before  the  first  crusade,  and  extends 
through  the  whole  period  of  the  crusades,  but  with  a 
gradually  changing  character,  so  that  in  its  last  period  it 
is  quite  different,  in  motive  and  purpose,  from  its  open- 
ing stages. 

The  history  of  the  empire  we  have  folloAved  somewhat 
fully  down  to  this  point,  through  its  revival  by  Charle- 
magne as  a  general  empire  of  the  West,  and  its  second 
revival  by  Otto  I.  as  a  German  and  Italian  empire.  The 
history  of  the  church  we  have  not  looked  at  with  the 
same  fulness. 

In  the  chapter  on  the  early  papacy  we  followed  its  his- 
tory down  to  a  point  where  most  of  the  causes  which 
were  to  transform  it  into  an  imperial  churcli  were  al- 
ready plainly  at  work.     That  period  of  its  history  closes 


230  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

naturally  with  the  leigD  of  Gregory  I.,  the  greatest  of  all 
the  early  popes.  He  defeucled  the  supremacy  of  the 
Romau  church  agaiust  the  pretensions  of  the  Greek  em- 
pire and  the  Greek  church.  He  became  in  consequence 
of  the  weakness  of  the  Eastern  emperor  the  virtual  tem- 
poral sovereign  of  Rome  and  the  surrounding  territory. 
He  held  in  check  the  advance  of  theLombards,increased 
the  actual  power  of  the  Roman  church  in  face  of  the 
Arianism  of  Spain  and  Gaul,  reformed  abuses  with  un- 
sparing hand,  converted  the  Saxonkingdoms  and  brought 
England  into  close  union  with  the  papacy,  and  by  the 
A'igar  of  his  rule  and  the  success  with  which  he  made  it 
respected  in  every  quarter  he  greatly  strengthened  the 
position  of  the  church. 

But  the  future  was  full  of  danger.  It  was  of  the  ut- 
most importance  in  the  development  of  the  monarchical 
church  that  a  reign  of  such  vigor  and  success,  and  one 
whichcarried  theorganizationsofarforward  should  have 
come  just  at  the  time  when  it  did — on  the  eve  of  a  long 
period  of  extremely  unfavorable  conditions,  and  even  of 
acute  danger.  All  the  prestige  and  increased  strength 
which  Gregory's  reign  had  imparted  were  needed  to  pre- 
serve the  centralization  which  had  been  gained,  and  to 
prevent  the  absorption  of  the  church  in  the  state.  The 
vigorous  but  irregular  advance  of  the  Lombard  state, 
which  threatened  the  absorption  of  the  whole  Italian  pen- 
insula, was  a  grave. danger  to  the  papacy.  Its  position 
asaworld  powerwas  as  seriously  threatened  by  the  wide- 
spread Arianism  of  the  German  states  of  the  west,  the 
Lombards,  the  Burguudians,  and  the  Visigoths  in  Gaul 
and  Spain.  From  these  dangers  it  was  saved  by  the 
alliance  with  the  Franks,  which  was  first  formed  by  Clovis 
and  afterward  made  still  closer  and  more  effective  by  the 
early  Carolingian  princes.  The  importance  of  that  alli- 
ance we  have  abeady  noticed,  but  it  is  hardly  possible  to 


THE   EMPIKE   AND   THE   PAPACY  231 

overstate  its  influence  on  the  future.  If  on  the  one  side 
it  rendered  easy  the  formation  of  the  Frankish  empire, 
the  political  consolidation  for  a  time  of  nearly  the  whole 
of  Christendom,  and  the  incorporation  in  it  of  Germany, 
on  the  other  side  it  seems  as  if  without  it  the  medieval 
church  woi;Jd  have  been  impossible  and  all  its  vast  work 
for  civilization  left  to  be  far  more  slowly  performed  by 
some  other  agency.  Had  the  Franks  become  Arian  in- 
stead of  Catholic,  the  prestige  and  power  of  the  pope 
must  have  declined,  the  causes  which  gradually  led  to  the 
conversion  of  the  Arian  states  could  hardly  have  operated, 
and  though  the  Franks  might  have  widened  their  politi- 
cal dominions,  they  could  have  received  no  aid  from  an 
imperial  church,  and  there  could  have  been  no  ready 
channel  for  the  influence  of  the  Roman  ideas  which  they 
reproduced. 

While  this  alliance  was  begun  upon  the  political  side, 
and  chiefly  from  political  motives,  it  was  drawn  still 
more  close  and  rendered  permanent  upon  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal side  by  the  work  of  a  great  churchman,  St.  Boniface, 
whose  name  must  be  remembered  among  the  constructive 
statesmen  who  created  the  papal  monarchy.  Time  as 
well  as  genius  favored  his  work,  for  it  fell  in  a  formative 
period  of  the  utmost  importance  when  the  great  future 
possible  for  them  was  just  opening  before  the  Carolin- 
gians,  and  when,  if  ever,  the  hold  of  the  church  upon  their 
empire  must  be  secured.  'This  Boniface  did.  He  was 
by  birth  an  Anglo-Saxon,  and  so  trained  in  those  ideas  of 
thorough  devotion  to  the  pope  which  had  been  character- 
istic of  the  English  church  since  its  founding  under  Greg- 
ory, even  though  the  Anglo-Saxon  states  had  allowed  to 
the  popes  but  little  direct  control  of  ecclesiastical  affair's. 
In  this  respect  his  labors  upon  the  continent  were  a  re- 
newal and  enlargement  of  Gregory's  work  for  the  consoli- 
dation- 6i  the  church.     Filled  with  the  missionary  zeal  of 


232  MEDII<:VAL   CIVILIZATION 

his  great  predecessor,  wliich  had  always  lived  in  the 
Aiiglo-Saxou  church,  he  had  come  from  England  to  con- 
vert the  still  pagan  Germans,  but  the  force  of  his  genius 
had  drawn  him  into  ever  wider  and  more  important  work, 
until  finally  the  organization  of  theFrankish  church,  which 
was  in  sad  need  of  reformation,  was  placed  in  his  hands 
by  the  sons  of  Charles  Martel,  and  by  the  pope  that  of 
the  German  church  in  the  newly  converted  lands  held 
under   the   Franks.      This   work  was  most   ably   done. 
The  Frankish  church  was  given  a  more  compact  organi- 
zation than  it  had  ever  before  possessed,  and  the  church 
of  Germany  was  created.     But  more  important  still  Avas 
the  wider  influence  of  this  work,  for  in  all  its  details  he 
cai-ried  into  practice  a  theory  most  complete,  considering 
the  time,  of  the  supremacy  of  the  pope  as  the  head  of 
the  whole  church  and  the  source  of  all  authority.     As  a 
result,  just  at  the  moment  when  the  Frankish  kings  were 
about  to  become  the  temporal  sovereigns  of  the  pope  with 
a  political  power  behind  them  which  could  not  be  gain- 
said, not  merely  was  the  national  church  of  their  people 
given  a  stronger  and  more  independent  organization  as 
a  part  of  the  state,  but  it  was  also  imbued  with  the  idea 
of  the  high  and  exalted  position  held  by  the  pope,  almost 
if  not  quite  equal  to  that  of  the  king.     The  princes  un- 
der whom  he  worked,  and  their  successor,  Charlemagne, 
still  exercised  a  strong  and  direct  control  over  the  church, 
but  that  these  facts  had  some  influence  in  checking  their 
arbitrary  rule  in  ecclesiastical  matters  is  highly  probable. 
That  they  were  of  decided  force  under  their  weaker  suc- 
cessors is  more  distinctly  evident,  and  the  suddenness 
with  which  the  chui'ch  springs  into  prominence  and  con- 
trol as  soon  as  the  strong  hand  of  Charlemagne  is  with- 
drawn is  a  most  significant  fact. 

The  consolidation  of  the  continent  in  the   hands  of 
Charlemagne  was  a  great  advantage  to  the  growing  im- 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  233 

perial  churcli  as  giving  it  for  the  moment  a  political  foun- 
dation, but  it  carried  with  it  a  corresponding  danger. 
The  advance  of  the  Lombard  had  threatened  to  absorb 
the  papacy  in  the  state  and  to  reduce  it  to  the  headship 
of  a  merely  national  church.  From  this  it  was  rescued 
by  the  advance  of  the  Franks,  but  that  now  threatened  an 
equally  comj)lete  absorption.  A  man  of  Charlemagne's 
force  must  dictate  in  ecclesiastical  matters  as  in  temporal, 
and  had  his  power  and  genius  been  perpetuated  in  his 
successors  it  is  hard  to  see  Avhat  could  have  saved  the 
popes  from  sinking  into  a  position  like  that  of  the  patri- 
archs of  Constantinople,  and  the  real  control  of  the  church 
from  passing  into  the  hands  of  the  emperors. 

One  precedent,  however,  of  the  utmost  importance  had 
been  established  in  favor  of  the  papacy  by  the  crowning 
of  Charlemagne  as  Emperor  of  Rome.  Whatever  it  may 
have  meant  to  the  men  of  800,  it  was  very  easy  to  make 
it  appear  to  the  men  of  later  times  a  bestowal  of  the  em- 
pire by  the  gift  of  the  church  and  a  proof  that  the  pope 
was  the  source  of  imperial  right  and  power.  The 
church  never  forgot  a  precedent  of  this  sort,  and  it  did 
effective  service  in  the  age  of  conflict  upon  which  we  are 
entering. 

Whatever  might  have  been  the  fate  of  the  church  had 
Charlemagne's  genius  been  inherited,  the  fact  is  that  his 
successor  was  as  greatly  characterized  by  subserviency 
to  the  church  as  his  father  had  been  by  vigorous  self-wdll, 
and  the  ninth  century,  when  the  government  of  the  state 
was  daily  growing  weaker,  and  the  whole  Frankish  em- 
pire falling  to  pieces  is  marked  in  the  history  of  the  church 
by  the  rapid  growth  of  the  power  actually  exercised  by 
the  popes,  and  the  still  more  rapid  growth  of  their  pre- 
tensions to  power. 

.  Some  time  during  the  first  half  of  that  century  two 
most  remarkable  forgeries  made  their  appearance,  whose 


234  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

origin  and  tlie  purpose  for  wliich  they  were  originally 
intended  are  uncertain,  but  wliicli  became  of  the  greatest 
service  to  the  papal  cause.  The  first  of  these  is  the  so- 
called  Donation  of  Constantine.  According  to  the  legend, 
Constantine,  fatally  ill  of  the  leprosy,  was  cured  by  a  mir- 
acle through  the  agency  of  Pope  Sylvester  I.,  and  out  of 
gratitude  built  a  new  capital  in  the  East  and  turned  over 
by  deed  of  gift  all  his  imperial  rights  and  prerogatives 
over  the  West  to  the  pope.  The  document  in  the  papal 
archives  had  every  appearance  of  genuineness  to  the  un- 
critical sense  of  the  ninth  centui'y.  It  was  not  merely 
general  but  minute  in  its  specifications,  concerning  even 
matters  of  dress  and  regulating  the  rights  of  the  inferior 
clergy  of  Rome.'  It  is  easy  to  see  what  advantage  could 
be  derived  from  it  in  the  contest  with  the  emperors. 

The  other  forgery  was  a  great  collection  of  ecclesi- 
astical law  documents,  pretending  to  be  decretals  of  the 
popes. of  the  first  three  centuries  and  decisions  of  the 
councils  in  which  genuine  and  false,  authentic  and  unau- 
thentic were  mingled  together.  A  collection  of  such  doc- 
uments, not  forged,  had  been  made,  earlier,  in  Spain 
and  had  come  into  considerable  use  in  the  church,  and  this 
new  collection  became  confused  with  that,  and  the  name 
of  Isidore  of  Seville,  of  great  authority  in  the  church, 
was  attached  to  it.  It  was,  however,  greatly  enlarged  in 
scope  over  its  predecessors.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  place  of  its  construction,  probably  somewhere  in 
northern  France,  its  immediate  object  seems  to  have 
been  to  defend  the  independence  of  the  bishop  against 
the  claims  of  the  archbishop.  In  the  West  the  only  rival 
of  the  papal  power  had  been  the  metropolitan  jurisdic- 
tions. The  temptation  had  been  very  strong  for  the 
archbishop  to  consolidate  his  power  over  his  subordinate 

'  There  is  a  translation  of  this  deed  of  gift  in  Henderson's  Select  His- 
torical Documents  of  the  Middle  Ages. 


THE   EMPIRE  AND   THE   PAPACY  235 

bishops  and  to  create  a  little  independent  ecclesiastical 
dominion  by  resisting,  as  far  as  he  could,  every  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  pope  to  exercise  control  over  him.  In 
a  rivalry  of  this  sort  the  bishops  very  natm'ally  preferred 
the  distant  and  more  widely  occupied  authority  of  the 
pope  to  that  of  the  archbishop  near  at  hand,  and  imme- 
diately interested  in  every  local  affair.  This  seems  to 
have  been  the  motive  which  led  the  author  of  this  for- 
gery, in  a  series  of  documents  belonging,  in  pretence,  to 
the  earliest  generations  of  Christian  history,  to  exhibit 
the  papacy  in  the  full  possession  and  exercise  of  those 
rights  of  government  over  the  church,  and  of  interference 
even  in  minute  local  concerns  which  had  been  in  reality 
only  very  slowly  developed,  and  which  were  still  practi- 
cally claimed  rather  than  exercised.  But  whatever  may 
have  been  the  motive,  the  effect  was  to  put  in  the  hands 
of  the  popes  documentary  e^ddence  whose  genuineness 
no  one  was  then  able  to  dispute,  to  prove  that  the  rights 
which  they  were  just  then  vigorously  asserting  had  al- 
ways been  theii'  prerogative,  and  had  been  recognized 
and  submitted  to  by  the  primitive  chiu'ch. 

Hardly  were  these  two  documents  in  existence  when  a 
succession  of  able  men  followed  one  another  upon  the 
papal  throne  to  put  to  use  both  these  and  the  opportu- 
nity which  the  falling  Carolingian  government  afforded 
them.  The  first  of  them,  Nicholas  I.,  in  his  reign  of 
nearly  ten  years,  from  858  to  867,  carried  through  to 
successful  issue  an  obstinate  struggle  mth  Lothaire  II., 
King  of  Lorraine,  and  compelled  the  archbishop  of  Ra- 
venna, and  filially  Hincmar  of  Rheims,  the  ablest  of  all 
the  representatives  of  the  archbishops'  cause  against  the 
papacy,  to  yield  obedience.  The  next  two  popes, 
Hadrian  II.  and  John  YIII.,  covering  fifteen  years  of 
time,  were  not  able  to  show  as  much  in  the  Avay  of  actual 
results,  but  they  assumed  an  even  loftier  tone  and  ad- 


236  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

vanced  the  claims  of  the  papacy  to  the  highest  point,  John 
VIII.  asserting  that  the  emperor  owed  his  crown  to  the 
pope,  the  emperor  of  the  time,  Charles  the  Bald,  seeming 
to  acquiesce. 

In  the  final  dissolution  of  the  Carolingian  power  which 
followed  the  deposition  of  Charles  the  Fat,  in  887,  the 
papacy  shared  to  the  full  the  decline  of  the  temporal 
power.  The  tenth  century,  which  saw  general  govern- 
ment throughout  nearly  the  whole  of  Europe  almost  at 
the  point  of  dissolution,  saw  also  the  papacy  reach  its 
lowest  point  of  degradation  and  corruption.  It  came  to 
be  the  prize  for  which  the  factions  of  the  city  or  the  no- 
bles of  the  vicinity  fought  with  one  another,  or  the  gift 
of  corrupt  women  to  their  paramours  or  sons.  Its  gen- 
eral European  influence  did  not  entirely  disappear,  but 
it  was  hardly  more  than  that  of  the  Italian  nobles,  who 
through  the  same  period  called  themselves  emperors. 

This  was  the  condition  of  things  at  the  time  of  the  de- 
scenl  of  Otto  I.  into  Italy,  in  961.  His  plans,  and  still 
more  clearl}'  those  of  his  immediate  successors,  looked 
to  the  establishment  of  a  real  w^orld  empire,  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  which  the  papacy  should  act  as  a  strong  and 
efficient  ally  of  the  emj)erors.  The  popes  of  their  ap- 
pointment accomplished  at  least  a  partial  and  tempo- 
rary reformation,  though  without  the  support  of  the 
Roman  people,  and  though  the  realization  of  the  ideas 
which  the  Ottos  appear  to  have  cherished  would  have 
meant  the  practical  absorption  of  the  papacy  in  the  em- 
pire. But  the  destinies  were  against  the  Saxon  family. 
Otto  II.  hardly  more  than  began  his  reign,  which  prom- 
ised even  greater  resiilts  than  his  father  had  accom- 
plished in  the  centralization  of  Germany  and  the  res- 
toration of  the  empire,  and  his  death,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-eight,  was  a  great  misfortune  both  for  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  and  for  Germany. 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  2o7 

The  minority  of  liis  son,  Otto  III.,  was  a  time  of  loss 
in  all  directions.  The  dukes  recovered  something  of 
their  former  position  in  Germany,  and  the  hold  of  the 
empire  on  Italy  was  loosened.  When  Otto  reached  an 
age  to  rule,  he  revealed  a  most  interesting  personality. 
His  mind  seems  to  have  been  entirely  wrapped  in 
dreams  of  the  widest  imperial  power,  encouraged  appar- 
ently by  his  favorite,  Gerbert,  whom  he  made  pope  as 
Sylvester  II.  But  he  was  very  little  concerned  with  the 
position  which  he  should  occupy  as  German  king.  He 
gained,  very  likely  as  a  consequence  of  his  lack  of  national 
feeling,  no  strong  support  in  any  direction,  and  died  at 
the  age  of  twenty-two,  apparently  on  the  eve  of  failure. 

With  his  death  the  wide  imperial  ideas  of  the  Ottos 
were  dropped.  In  Italy  there  was  a  relapse  into  earlier 
conditions.  In  Germany  the  work  of  restoring  the 
royal  power  was  seriously  taken  up,  and  the  most  per- 
manent result  of  the  Saxon  empire  seems  to  have  been 
a  terrible  temptation,  constantly  before  the  king  of  Ger- 
many, to  neglect  his  proper  business  in  his  own  domin- 
ions, when  his  task  was  half  done,  for  the  sake  of  a 
visionary  headship  of  the  world. 

Tlie  devotion  of  the  Ottos  to  imperial  interests  had  al- 
lowed the  little  feudal  dominions  in  Germany  to  strength- 
en themselves  very  greatly,  and  to  take  a  much  more 
independent  position  toward  the  crown.  The  process 
of  destroyiug  the  central  government,  by  splitting  the 
country  into  minute  fragments  that  could  not  be  con- 
trolled, which  entailed  so  miich  suffering  in  future  ages 
upon  the  Germans,  and  kept  them  back  so  long  from 
any  real  national  life,  got  so  strongly  under  way,  because 
of  the  imperial  policy  of  the  Saxon  family  in  Italy,  that 
it  was  no  longer  possible  to  stop  it — certainly  not  when 
that  policy  was  inherited  as  well  by  the  succeeding  kings. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  bear  this  fact  in 


238  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

mind,  because  it  not  merely  involved  the  destruction  of 
the  royal  power,  but  it  alone  rendered  possible  the  des- 
perate conflict  with  the  church,  and  finally  the  virtual 
triumph  of  the  i)ope.  Had  the  emperor  been  supported 
by  a  centralized  Germany,  had  not  his  plans  been  con- 
stantly checked  by  the  selfish  interests  of  the  feudal  lords, 
papal  resistance  would  have  been  impossible,  and  the 
growing  might  of  the  Italian  cities  would  have  been  over- 
whelmed before  it  could  have  developed  into  a  serious 
obstacle  to  the  imperial  authority. 

The  aspect  of  Germany  at  the  accession  of  Hemy  III. , 
in  1039,  had  changed  very  much  from  that  of  a  hundred 
years  earlier.  The  duchies  still  existed  in  name,  but 
with  a  relative  importance  very  much  reduced  by  the 
rise  of  numerous  smaller  feudal  dominions  beside  them. 
Pfalzgrafen,  markgrafen,  and  even  grafen,  had  been 
foimding  little  "dynasties,"  and  gradually  throwing  off 
any  dependence  upon  the  dukes,  whose  territories  were 
being  diminished  in  this  way  and  their  power  weakened. 
Konrad  II.,  the  first  Franconian  emperor,  seems  to  have 
deliberately  encouraged  the  rise  into  independence  of 
these  smaller  principalities,  as  a  means  of  undermining 
the  great  ones,  and  the  policy  of  the  Saxon  emperors,  of 
conferring  independent  rights  of  jurisdiction  on  ecclesi- 
astical princes,  tended  to  the  same  result.' 

The  policy  was,  in  the  main,  a  successful  one,  or  we 
may  say  that  the  process  of  separation  and  local  in- 
dependence had  not  yet  gone  so  far  but  that  a  gener- 
ation of  ^^gorous  government,  when  the  king  interested 

'  The  final  steps  in  this  process,  when  the  duchies,  in  the  old  sense, 
disappeared,  and  numerous  smaller  principalities  rose  to  full  equality 
with  the  power  which  the  duchies  had  once  held,  were  taken  in  the 
Ilohenstaufen  period.  The  geography  of  Germany  in  that  period,  as 
compared  with  that  under  the  Saxon  emperors,  shows  how  far  this  pro- 
cess had  gone.  Compare  Maps  23  and  26  in  Droysen's  Historischer 
Handatlas. 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  239 

himself  chiefly  in  German  affairs,  was  able  to  restore  the 
royal  power.  Henry  III.  was  speedily  able  to  acquire 
the  strongest  real  control  of  Germany  that  any  sovereign 
had  had,  or  that  any  was  ever  to  have  for  that  matter. 

But  he  was  soon  called  into  Italy.  There  the  condition 
of  things  for  a  few  years  past  had  been  nearly  as  bad  as 
at  any  time  in  the  tenth  century.  The  counts  of  Tus- 
culum  had  almost  made  the  papacy  hereditary  in  their 
family,  and  by  the  most  corrupt  means.  At  this  time 
there  were  three  rival  popes,  each  maintaining  his  ex- 
clusive right  to  rule.  All  of  them  Heniy  deposed,  and 
appointed,  one  after  another,  a  succession  of  popes  almost 
as  solely  by  virtue  of  his  imperial  power  as  if  the  Roman 
bishopric  were  any  minor  bishojsric  of  Germany.  The 
series  of  precedents  in  favor  of  the  right  of  the  emperor 
over  the  pope  which  had  been  established  by  the  Ottos 
and  Henry  was  as  clear  and  indisputable  as  any  prece- 
dents on  the  other  side  to  which  the  popes  could  appeal. 

But  with  the  popes  of  Henry's  appointment  anew  and 
most  powerful  force  rose  to  the  control  of  the  papacy — 
a  strong  and  earnest  movement  for  reformation  which 
had  arisen  outside  the  circle  of  papal  influence  during 
the  darkest  days  of  its  degradation,  indeed,  and  entirely 
independent  of  the  empire.  This  had  started  from  the 
monastery  of  Cluny,  founded  in  910,  in  eastern  France, 
as  a  reformation  "  of  the  monastic  life,  but  it  involved 
gradually  ideas  of  a  wider  reformation  throughout  the 
whole  church.  Two  great  sins  of  the  time,  as  it  regarded 
them,  were  especially  attacked,  the  maniage  of  priests 
and  simony,  or  the  purchase  of  ecclesiastical  preferment 
for  money,  including  also  appointments  to  church  offices 
by  temporal  rulers. 

Neither  of  these  principles  was  new  in  the  requirement 
of  the  chui'ch,  but  the  vigor  and  thoroughness  of  the  de- 
mand were  new,  and  both  principles  were  carried  to  fur- 


240  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

tber  consequences  than  ever  before.  It  is  easy  to  see, 
also,  that,  if  they  were  carried  out  in  any  thorough-going 
and  complete  way,  they  would  necessarily  involve  a  most 
perfect  centralization  of  the  church,  and  this  was  a  part 
of  the  Cluny  programme.  The  absolute  subordination  of 
all  local  churches  to  the  central  head,  the  pope,  and  the 
entire  independence  of  the  church,  both  in  head  and 
members,  of  all  control  by  the  state,  were  inevitable 
corollaries  of  its  position. 

The  earnest  sj)irit  of  Hem-y  III.  was  not  out  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  demand  for  a  real  reformation,  and  with 
the  third  pope  of  his  appointment,  Leo  IX.,  in  1048,  the 
ideas  of  Cluny  obtained  the  direction  of  affairs.  Leo 
was  an  able  man,  and  undertook  a  restoration  of  the  papal 
power  throughout  Europe  with  vigor  and  determination, 
though  not  with  uniform  success.  He  did  not  recognize 
the  right  of  the  emperor  to  appoint  the  poj)e,  and  refused 
to  assume  the  place  until  he  had  been  canonically  chosen 
in  Rome,  but  on  his  death  his  successor  was  again  ap- 
pointed by  Henrj^ 

One  apparently  insignificant  act  of  Leo's  had  impor- 
tant consequences.  He  brought  back  with  him  to  Rome 
the  monk  Hildebrand.  He  had  been  brought  up  in  a 
monastery  in  Rome  in  the  strictest  ideas  of  Cluny,  had 
been  a  supporter  of  Gregory  YI.,  one  of  the  three  rival 
popes  deposed  by  Henry,  who,  notwithstanding  his  out- 
right purchase  of  the  papacy,  represented  the  new  reform 
demand,  and  had  gone  with  him  into  exile  on  his  deposi- 
tion. It  does  not  appear  that  he  exercised  any  decisive 
influence  dm-ing  the  reign  of  Leo  IX.,  but  so  gi-eat  was 
his  ability  and  such  the  power  of  his  personality  that  very 
soon  he  became  the  directing  spirit  in  the  papal  policy, 
though  his  influence  over  the  pai^acy  before  his  own 
pontificate  was  not  so  great  nor  so  constant  as  it  has 
sometimes  been  said  to  have  been. 


THE  iSMPIRE  AKD  THE  PAPACY  241 

So  long  as  Heury  lived  the  balance  of  power  was  de- 
cidedly in  favor  of  the  emperor,  but  in  1056  happened 
that  disastrous  event,  w^iich  occurred  so  many  times  at 
critical  points  of  imperial  history,  from  Arnulf  to  Henry 
VI.,  the  premature  death  of  the  emperor.  His  son,  Henry 
IV.,  was  only  six  years  old  at  his  father's  death,  and  a 
minority  followed  just  in  the  crisis  of  time  needed  to 
enable  the  feudal  princes  of  Germany  to  recover  and 
strengthen  their  independence  against  the  central  gov- 
ernment, and  to  give  free  hands  to  the  papacy  to  carry 
out  its  plans  for  throwing  off  the  imperial  control. 
Never  again  did  an  emperor  occupy,  in  respect  either  to 
Germany  or  the  papacy,  the  vantage-gi'ound  on  which 
Henry  III.  had  stood. 

It  was  thus  a  turning-point  in  the  history  of  Germany 
and  of  the  church.  It  was  also,  in  one  sense,  a  turning- 
point  in  the  history  of  the  world,  for  the  real  religious 
reformation,  which  was  demanded  and  which  had  been 
begun  by  Cluny,  need  not,  of  necessity,  have  involved 
the  extreme  centralization  which  had  been  connected 
with  it  and  which  raised  the  papacy  to  its  position  of 
European  supremacy  in  another  century.  It  needed  a 
strong  and  able  emperor  of  a  thoroughly  reforming  spirit 
to  separate  the  reform  which  was  necessary  from  the 
absolutist  tendency  which  accompanied  it.  Whether 
Henry  III.  could  have  done  this  we  cannot  be  sure. 
His  death  certainly  made  it  impossible. 

The  triumph  of  the  reform  movement  and  of  its  eccle- 
siastical theory  is  especially  connected  with  the  name  of 
Hildebrand,  or  Gregory  VII.,  as  he  called  himself  when 
pope,  and  was  very  largely,  if  not  entirely,  due  to  his 
indomitable  spirit  and  iron  will,  wdiich  would  yield  to  no 
persuasion  or  threats  or  actual  force.  He  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  personalities  of  history.  The  sentence 
of  his  supporter,  Peter  Damiaui,  "  He  ruled  me  like  a 
16 


242  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

lioly  Satan,"  lias  been  so  often  quoted  because  it  de- 
scribes him  in  a  word.  His  acts  were  often  those  which 
properly  belong  in  the  kingdom  of  darkness,  but  his  pur- 
poses were  righteous,  as  he  understood  the  right — a  most 
interesting  example  of  the  men  so  numerous  in  every 
age  and  in  every  walk  of  life  who  are  so  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  the  holiness  of  their  cause  that  all  the  means 
which  they  can  use  to  secure  its  triumph  seem  to  them 
equally  holy. 

The  three  chief  points  which  the  reform  party  at- 
tempted to  gain  were  the  independence  of  the  church 
from  all  outside  control  in  the  election  of  the  pope,  the 
celibacy  of  the  clergy,  and  the  abolition  of  simony  or  the 
purchase  of  ecclesiastical  preferment.  The  foundation 
for  the  fii'st  of  these  was  laid  under  Nicholas  11.  by  as- 
signing the  selection  of  the  pope  to  the  college  of  car- 
dinals in  Rome,  though  it  was  only  after  some  consider- 
able time  that  this  reform  was  fully  secured. 

The  second  point,  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  had  long 
been  demanded  by  the  church,  but  the  requirement  had 
not  been  strictly  enforced,  and  in  many  parts  of  Europe 
married  clergy  were  the  rule.  The  attempt  which  was 
made  to  compel  obedience  on  this  point  met  with  the 
most  violent  opposition  within  the  church  itself,  but  the 
sympathy  of  the  people  was  in  the  main  with  the  re- 
formers and  their  cause  was  finally  gained.  The  im- 
portance of  this  step  and  its  value  in  the  centralization 
of  the  church  hardly  needs  to  be  stated.  Not  mere- 
ly was  the  temptation  to  alienate  the  endowments  of 
the  church  for  the  benefit  of  children  removed  from  the 
clergy,  but  all  their  lives  were  made  to  centre  in  the 
chm-ch.  They  were  to  have  nothing  else  to  live  for, 
nothing  else  to  plan  for.  The  chui'ch  secured  an  army  of 
occupation,  thoroughly  devoted  to  itself,  in  every  country 
of  Europe.     There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  the  Cluny 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  243 

party  believed  that  they  were  accomplishing  a  needed 
moral  reform  in  this  matter,  but  there  is  also  no  doubt 
but  that  they  realized  and  hoped  to  secure  the  gain  which 
would  result  from  it  to  the  ecclesiastical  world  monarchy. 

As  interpreted  by  the  reformers,  the  third  of  their  de- 
mands, the  suppression  of  simony,  was  as  great  a  step  in 
advance  and  as  revolutionary  as  the  first.  Technically, 
simony  was  the  sin  of  securing  an  ecclesiastical  office  by 
bribery,  named  from  the  incident  recorded  in  the  eighth 
chapter  of  the  Acts  concerning  Simon  Magus.  But  at 
this  time  the  desire  for  the  complete  independence  of  the 
church  had  given  to  it  a  new  and  wider  meaning  which 
made  it  include  all  appointment  to  positions  in  the 
church  by  laymen,  including  kings  and  the  emperor. 

It  is  the  plainest  of  historical  facts  that  such  appoint- 
ment had  gone  on,  practically  undisputed,  from  the 
earliest  times.  Under  both  the  piiblic  and  the  private 
law  of  all  the  German  states  the  king  had  such  a  right. 
According  to  the  private  law  the  founder  was  the  patron, 
and  as  such  enjoyed  the  right  of  appointment.  Accord- 
ing to  the  conception  of  the  public  law  the  bishop  was 
an  officer  of  the  state.  He  had,  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases,  political  duties  to  perform  as  important  as  his  ec- 
clesiastical duties.  The  lands  which  formed  the  endow- 
ment of  his  office  had  always  been  considered  as  being, 
still  more  directly  than  any  other  feudal  land,  the  prop- 
erty of  the  state,  and  were  treated  as  such  when  the 
occasion  demanded,  from  times  before  Charles  Martel  to 
times  after  Gregory  VII.  At  this  period  these  lands  had 
clearly  defined  feudal  obligations  to  perform,  which  con- 
stituted a  very  considerable  proportion  of  the  resources 
of  the  state.  It  was  a  matter  of  vital  importance  whether 
officers  exercising  such  important  functions  and  controll- 
ing so  large  a  part  of  its  area — probably  everywhere  as 
much  as  one-third  of  the  territory—should  be  selected  by 


244  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

the  state  or  by  some  foreign  power  beyond  its  reach  and 
liaviug  its  own  peculiar  interests  to  seek. 

But  this  question  of  lay  investiture  was  as  vitally  im- 
portant for  the  church  as  for  the  state.  Not  merely  was 
the  bishop  a  great  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  political  of- 
ficer, but  manifestly  also  that  close  centralization  of  the 
church,  which  was  to  be  the  result  of  this  movement, 
could  not  be  secured  if  temporal  princes  should  have  the 
right  of  determining  what  sort  of  men  should  occujjy 
places  of  such  influence  in  the  government  of  the  church. 
It  was  as  necessary  to  the  centralization  and  indepen- 
dence of  the  church  that  it  should  choose  these  officers  as 
that  it  should  elect  the  head  of  all — the  pope. 

This  was  not  a  question  for  Germany  alone.  Every 
northern  state  had  to  face  the  same  difliculty.  In  Eng- 
land during  this  period  the  same  contest  was  can-ied 
through  to  the  same  compromise  at  the  end.  In  France 
the  contest  did  not  rise  to  the  same  importance  fi'om 
accidental  reasons,  but  the  result  was  essentially  the 
same.  The  struggle  was  so  much  more  bitter  and  ob- 
stinate with  the  emperor  than  wdth  any  other  sovereign 
because  of  the  close  relation  of  the  two  powers  one  to 
another,  and  because  the  whole  question  of  their  relative 
rights  was  bound  up  with  it.  It  was  an  act  of  rebellion 
on  the  part  of  the  papacy  against  the  sovereign,  who  had 
controlled  it  with  almost  absolute  power  for  a  century, 
and  it  was  the  rising  into  an  equal,  or  even  superior,  place 
beside  the  emperor  of  what  was  practically  a  new  power, 
a  rival  for  his  imperial  position. 

For  this  was  what  the  movement  taken  as  a  whole 
really  meant.  It  is  not  possible  to  overstate  the  signifi- 
cance of  this  age  as  the  time  when  the  possibility  which 
lay  before  it  of  assuming  the  control  of  the  whole  Chris- 
tian world,  political  as  well  as  ecclesiastical,  dawned 
upon  the  consciousness  of  the  Roman  church.     The  full 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  245 

power  which  so  many  men  in  the  jjast  had  been  laboring 
to  secure,  though  only  imperfectly  understanding  it,  the 
position  toward  which  through  so  many  centuries  she 
had  been  steadily  though  unconsciously  tending,  the 
church  now  began  clearly  to  see,  and  to  realize  that  it 
was  almost  attained,  and,  seeing  this,  to  set  about  the 
last  steps  necessary  to  reach  the  goal  with  definite  and 
vigorous  purpose. 

This  cannot  be  doubted  by  anyone  who  looks  over  the 
acts  and  the  claims  of  the  papacy  during  the  time  of 
Hildebrand.  The  feudal  suzerainty  which  is  established 
under  Nicholas  II.  over  the  Norman  states  of  southern 
Italy  is  based  distinctly  on  the  rights  conveyed  by  the 
Donation  of  Constantine,  which,  if  carried  further,  cov- 
ered the  whole  West.  The  kings  of  the  growing  Spanish 
states  are  reminded  that  territory  conquered  from  the 
infidel  belongs  of  right  to  the  pope  as  vassal  territory-. 
The  same  claim  is  advanced  for  Hungary.  The  fealty 
of  England  is  demanded.  Most  imperious  letters  are 
written  to  the  king  of  France.  Political  affairs  are  taken 
notice  of  in  Scandinavia  and  in  Russia.  The  king  of 
Munster,  in  Ireland,  is  informed  that  all  sovereigns  are 
subjects  of  St.  Peter,  and  that  all  the  world  owes  obedi- 
ence to  him  and  to  his  vicar.  The  difference  betAveen 
the  actual  power  of  the  papacy  under  Gregory  VII.,  and 
again  under  Innocent  III.,  when  it  reaches  its  highest 
point,  is  due  to  the  circumstances  of  the  time  which  en- 
able the  later  pope  to  carry  through  his  pretensions  to  a 
more  successful  issue,  and  not  at  all  to  any  clearer  con- 
ception of  his  rights  by  Innocent. 

It  was  absolutely  impossible  that  a  conflict  with  these 
new  claims  should  be  avoided  as  soon  as  Henry  IV.  ar- 
rived at  an  age  to  take  the  government  into  his  own 
hands  and  attempted  to  exercise  his  imperial  rights  as 
he  understood  them. 


246  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOlSr 

The  details  of  that  conflict  it  is  not  possible  to  follow  : 
the  divieled  condition  of  Germany,  which  fatally  weakened 
the  emperor's  power ;  the  dramatic  incident  of  Canossa  ; 
the  faithful  support  of  the  imperial  cause  by  the  Rhine 
cities ;  the  rebellion  of  Henry's  son,  who,  when  he  be- 
came emperor,  followed  his  father's  policy ;  the  death  of 
Henry  IV.,  powerless  and  under  the  ban  of  the  church  ; 
the  fluctuations  of  success,  now  on  one  side  and  now  on 
the  other. 

The  settlement  which  was  finally  reached  in  the  Con- 
cordat of  Worms,  in  1122,  was  a  compromise.'  The 
church  was  to  choose  the  man  for  the  oflice.  He  was 
then  to  receive  the  lay  investiture,  as  a  political  and  feu- 
dal oflicer,  from  the  king,  and  finally  the  spiritual  in- 
vestiture, with  the  ring  and  stafl",  from  the  church,  as  an 
ecclesiastical  oflicer  and  a  pastor.  The  state  secured  in 
this  way  something  of  a  control,  though  not  so  complete 
as  it  had  desired,  over  the  interests  in  which  it  was  most 
concerned.  And  the  church,  yielding  also  some  of  its 
demands,  secured  the  point  most  important  for  its  pro- 
tection. It  was,  in  all  probability,  as  fair  a  settlement  of 
the  dispute  as  could  be  reached,  and  the  question  prac- 
tically disappeared — not  absolutely,  because,  as  oppor- 
tunity offered  in  the  following  times,  each  of  the  parties 
tried  to  usurp  the  rights  which  had  not  been  granted  to  it ; 
but  the  question  never  again  became  of  such  universal  im- 
portance as  when  it  was  the  central  issue  in  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  empii-e  and  the  papacy.  When  that  great  strife 
opened  again,  nearly  half  a  centmy  later,  it  had  shifted 
to  other  grounds  and  j)resents  a  wholly  changed  aspect. 

'  This  concordat  may  be  found,  in  translation,  in  Henderson,  p.  408 ; 
in  the  original,  in  Matthews,  Select  MedUvml  Documents  (Boston.  1892), 
p.  6G— a  little  book  which  makes  easily  accessible  the  text  of  a  con- 
siderable number  of  the  important  documents  illustrating  the  conflict 
between  church  and  empire. 


THE   EMPIKE   AND   THE  PAPACY  247 

While,  however,  on  the  special  question  the  church  did 
not  secure  all  that  it  had  claimed  or  hoped  for — though 
all,  perhaps,  to  which  it  had  a  just  claim— there  was  far 
more  at  stake  in  the  contest,  as  we  have  seen,  than  the 
particular  point  of  lay  investiture,  and  in  regard  to  these 
wider  interests  the  victory  of  the  chm-ch  was  complete. 
The  change  which  had  taken  place  in  the  century  from 
the  papacy  as  it  existed  under  Henry  IH.  was  enormous. 
The  popes  had  emancipated  themselves  from  all  imperi- 
al control,  never  agaiu  to  pass  under  it.  But  they  had 
gained  much  more  than  this.  Not  merely  was  the  papacy 
independent,  but  it  had  come  up  beside  the  empire  as  a 
fully  co-ordinate  and  equal  sovereignty,  not  merely  in 
theory  but  in  the  power  actually  exercised.  It  was  also 
no  longer  satisfied  with  ecclesiastical  rule.  It  had  greatly 
enlarged  its  sphere,  and  was  claiming  rights  throughout 
Eui'ope  which  were  manifestly  political  and  therefore  be- 
longing to  the  emperor's  domain.  But  the  emperor  was 
powerless  to  prevent  this  extension  of  papal  prerogative, 
and  could  not  possibly  interfere  with  success  in  cases 
where  the  pope  made  himself  obeyed.  This  papal  power 
continued  to  grow  through  the  twelfth  century,  greatly 
aided  by  the  general  spirit  of  the  age  and  by  the  con- 
temporary crusades,  and  at  its  close  Innocent  III.  exer- 
cised a  more  truly  international  sway  than  any  emperor 
had  ever  done. 

After  the  interval  of  a  single  reign  a  new  dynasty  suc- 
ceeded the  Franconian  upon  the  imperial  throne — the 
Hohenstaufen — one  of  the  most  brilliant  families  of  his- 
tory, producing  a  most  remarkable  succession  of  princes. 
The  first  of  this  family  to  take  up  in  any  wide  sense  the 
old  imperial  plan,  and  consequently  to  come  into  collision 
A\dth  the  papacy,  was  Frederick  Barbarossa,  whose  reign 
begins  in  1152. 


248  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

This  seems  to  be  a  new  age  of  conflict  between  empire 
and  papacy.  This  is  its  surface  appearance,  and  this 
determined  largely  its  external  character.  But  it  needs 
only  to  look  below  the  surface,  and  not  very  far  below, 
to  see  that  this  is  not  a  contest  between  empire  and 
papacy  in  the  old  sense.  That  rivalry  is  no  longer,  as  it 
Avas  before,  the  one  leading  and  central  issue  between  the 
parties.  It  has  rather  fallen  to  the  position  of  an  incident 
of  the  main  battle.  The  great  struggle  of  Frederick's  life 
is  with  powers  and  principalities  which  did  not  exist  a 
hundred  years  earlier.  It  is  manifestly  a  conflict  of  the 
old  empire,  a  creation  of  earlier  medieval  times  and  fit- 
ted to  their  conditions,  with  the  spirit  and  conditions  of  a 
new  age  to  which  it  is  unfitted,  with  strong  forces  which 
are  everywhere  transforming  Europe  and  which  cannot 
be  held  back.  It  is  rather  a  struggle  on  the  part  of  the 
emperor  to  recover  and  to  retain  an  imperial  position 
from  which  he  is  being  slowly  but  irresistibly  pushed. 
than  to  prevent  any  rival  power  from  establishing  a  sim- 
ilar imperial  position  beside  him.  That  had  now  been 
done  beyond  any  possibility  of  further  dispute. 

The  papacy,  which  was  itself  in  the  end  also  to  fall  a 
victim,  so  far  as  its  imperial  power  is  concerned,  to  the 
forces  of  the  new  age,  was  for  the  moment  theu'  ally. 
And  this  was  in  truth  the  necessary  and  proper  alliance 
for  it  to  make.  For,  though  the  new  age  was  to  prove 
itself  bitterly  hostile  to  certain  of  the  papal  jjretensions, 
its  immediate  triumph  was  not  so  full  of  danger,  even  to 
these  pretensions,  as  that  of  the  emperor  would  have 
been,  and,  in  the  end,  could  not  be  so  destructive  to  the 
other  side  of  the  papal  power,  its  ecclesiastical  suprem- 
acy. 

If  we  look  first  at  Germany,  which  would  seem  to  be 
necessarily  the  foundation  of  any  strong  imperial  power, 
we  see  at  once  the  magnitude  of  the  change  which  has 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  249 

taken  place  there,  and  the  entire  revohition  in  the  im- 
perial policy  since  the  dsLja  of  Henry  III. 

The  subdivision  of  Germany  has  now  been  carried 
much  further  than  at  that  time.  A  host  of  small  princi- 
palities have  escaped  from  the  authority  of  any  inter- 
mediate lord,  and  now  depend  immediately  upon  the 
emperor.  Their  rights  of  independence  and  local  govern- 
ment are  much  more  clearly  defined  and  fully  recognized 
than  then.  They  are  no  longer — though  they  may  retain 
the  titles — dukes  and  counts,  that  is,  officers  of  the  em- 
pire, but  they  are  "  princes,"  or,  in  other  words,  sover- 
eigns. Some  of  them  have  already  begun,  Avith  great 
vigor  and  earnestness,  the  work  of  centralizing  and  con- 
solidating their  own  territories,  and  of  breaking  the 
power  of  theu'  OAvn  vassals,  and  of  the  small  nobles  with- 
in their  reach,  in  order  to  prevent  that  process  of  dis- 
integration in  their  own  land  which  they  have  accom- 
plished themselves  in  the  kingdom  at  large. 

This  change  in  Germany,  Frederick  I.  could  not  re- 
verse, it  is  indeed  the  trait  which  is  characteristic  of 
his  policy  that  he  no  longer  tried  to  do  so.  He  deliber- 
atel}^  increased  the  number  of  the  smaller  principalities, 
or  raised  them  in  titular  rank,  and  sometimes  with  ex- 
traordinary concessions  of  local  independence.  He  did 
certainly  punish  with  severity  the  refusal  of  Henry  the 
Lion,  the  head  of  the  great  rival  power  in  Germany,  that 
of  the  Guelf s,  to  aid  him  in  Italy,  and  broke  to  pieces  the 
widedojuinion  which  he  had  brought  together.  But 
wKile  this  w^as  a  personal  triumph  for  Frederick,  the 
power  of  the  king  of  Germany  gained  nothing  permanent 
from  it. 

The  real  basis  of  Frederick's  power,  and  the  main 
source  of  the  strength  which  he  could  derive  from  Ger- 
many, for  his  Italian  campaigns,  were  the  extensive 
family  possessions  of  the  Hohenstaufen,  increased  by  the 


250  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

iulieritance  of  the  Franconian  family  lands,  possessions 
which,  when  brought  together  were  greater  than  those  of 
any  other  German  family  with  the  possible  exception  of 
the  Guelfs.  To  these  resources  Frederick  added  what- 
ever he  could  at  any  moment  gain  from  the  German 
princes,  won  often  by  further  concessions  from  the  relics 
of  the  royal  power. 

Frederick  I.  may  be  said,  then,  to  have  begun  that 
policy  which,  though  it  was  a  complete  abandonment  of 
the  old  imperial  policy,  is  the  sole  method  of  the  em- 
perors of  all  later  times,  the  policy  of  depending  chiefly 
upon  the  strength  derived  from  the  personal  possessions 
of  the  emperor,  and  using  the  roj'al  rights  as  ready 
money  with  which  to  purchase,  whatever  can  be  piu- 
chased,  to  add  to  this  private  strength.  As  Frederick's 
reign  was  the  apparent  turning-point  from  the  old  policy 
to  the  new  one,  it  was  naturally  not  followed  with  such 
complete  disregard  of  consequences  as  it  was  to  be  very 
soon  after,  but  it  was  clearly  enough  his  policy,  and  we 
may  date  from  his  time  the  surrender  of  the  central 
government  in  Germany  to  the  sovereignty  and  indepen- 
dence of  the  princes. 

It  is  in  Italy,  however,  that  the  most  decisive  and 
revolutionary  changes,  which  mark  the  new  age,  are  to 
be  seen.  There  Frederick  found  opposed  to  him  an  en- 
tirely new  and  most  determined  enemy — the  cities. 

Favoring  causes  which  were  begim  or  strengthened  by 
the  crusades,  and  which  we  shall  hereafter  examine  more 
closel}',  had  led  to  a  rapid  development  of  the  cities  in 
power  and  in  the  spirit  of  independence.  They  had 
arisen  in  northern  Italy  to  occupy  the  place  which  the 
princes  occupied  in  Germany,  that  is,  they  Wre  the  frag- 
ments into  which  the  country  had  divided  in  the  absence 
of  a  strong  central  government.  Like  the  princes,  also, 
they  had  secured  rights   of   local   self-government,  but 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  251 

their  governments  were  of  course  republican  in  form  and 
not  monarchical,  and  their  actual  independence  was  prob- 
ably greater  than  the  German  princes  enjoyed  at  this 
time.  They  had  adopted  also  the  policy,  toward  the 
feudal  nobles  in  their  neighborhood,  which  the  princes 
were  beginning  to  follow  in  Germany,  though  in  the  case 
of  the  cities  with  speedy  and  complete  success.  Feudal- 
ism, as  a  political  institution,  had  practically  disappeared 
from  Italy  by  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century.  Only 
two  or  three  of  the  great  fiefs  still  existed.  The  cities 
had  almost  Avholly  absorbed  the  smaller  nobility,  and  had 
created  larger  or  smaller  city  princij)alities  by  extend- 
ing their  sway  over  as  much  of  the  suiTounding  territory 
as  possible.  It  was  manifestly  certain  that  the  cities 
would  offer  a  most  obstinate  resistance  to  any  attempt  to 
restore  a  direct  imperial  control. 

But  in  one  way  the  development  of  commerce  and  of 
the  cities  had  placed  a  new  weapon  in  the  emperor's 
hands.  It  had  led  to  a  more  general  and  thorough  study 
of  the  Roman  law,  and  this  law  represented  the  emperor 
as  absolute  in  all  departments  of  government.  Freder- 
ick's lawyers  said  to  him  3'our  will  is  the  source  of  law 
according  to  the  recognized  legal  maxim  of  the  Institutes : 
whatever  the  prince  has  approved  has  the  force  of  law. 

It  was  with  the  sanction  which  he  derived  from  the  au- 
thority of  the  Justinian  code  that  Frederick  attemjDted 
to  establish  a  royal  supervision  of  the  local  governments 
of  the  cities,  and  to  revive  a  number  of  practically  obso- 
lete rights  which  could  be  made  to  yield  a  considerable 
revenue.  What  he  did  has  very  much  the  appearance  of 
an  attempt  to  re-establish  in  Italy  that  centralized  and 
immediate  roj'al  government  Avhicli  had  been  practically 
given  up  in  Germany. 

For  the  cities  it  was  a  matter  of  vital  concern.  Not 
merely  was  the  local  independence  which  they  had  secured 


252  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

in  danger  but  also  their  continued  commercial  prosper- 
ity, wliicli  would  elepend  very  largely  upon  freedom  from 
restraint  and  the  power  of  self  -  direction.  Therefore 
they  made  common  cause  with  one  another,  the  most  of 
them  at  least,  and  drew  together  closely  in  the  Lombard 
League — an  organization  which  they  formed  for  mutual 
defence  against  the  emperor. 

The  details  of  the  struggle  we  cannot  follow.  The 
battle  of  Legnano,  in  117G,  is  worthy  of  note,  in  which 
the  cities  gained  a  complete  victory  over  the  emperor 
and  broke  his  power  for  the  moment.  But  it  was  a  vic- 
tor}- from  which  they  did  not  gain  so  much  as  might  have 
been  expected.  With  great  skill  Frederick  set  about  the 
recovery  of  his  position,  and  he  succeeded  in  separating 
the  papacy  from  the  cities,  and  making  a  separate  peace 
with  Alexander  III.  on  the  basis  of  mutual  concessions. 
Then  followed  in  Germany  the  overthrow  of  Henry  the 
Lion  and  the  destruction  of  the  power  of  the  Guelfs,  and 
after  this  Frederick  found  the  cities  as  ready  as  himself 
to  make  peace. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Constance,  which  was  concluded  be- 
tween them  in  1183,  the  general  sovereignty  of  the  em- 
peror was  recognized,  the  officers  elected  by  the  cities 
were  to  be  confirmed  by  him,  certain  cases  might  be  ap- 
pealed from  the  city  courts  to  his  representatives,  and 
the  special  rights  which  he  had  claimed  were  commuted 
for  an  annual  payment  from  each  city  large  enough  to 
afford  him  a  considerable  revenue.  Li  reality,  however, 
the  local  sovereignty  and  independence  of  the  cities  was 
recognized  by  the  emperor,  and  the  hope  of  establishing 
a  consolidated  national  government  in  Italy,  if  he  had 
cherished  it,  was  abandoned,  as  it  had  been  in  Germany. 
Certainly  both  these  countries  had  now  fallen  into  frag- 
ments, never  again  to  be  united  into  a  national  whole 
until  oui-  own  generation. 


THE   EMPIRE   AND   THE   PAPACY  25o 

The  emperor  bad  now  made  peace  with  all  his  ene- 
mies, and  the  last  part  of  his  reign  was  onlj  slightly 
troubled  with  opposition.  He  was  master  of  large  re- 
sources and  possessed  very  great  and  real  power.  It 
might  seem  to  him  almost  possible  to  establish  as  an 
actual  fact  the  Holy  Ptoman  Empire  of  the  theory,  and 
there  are  indications  that  he  thought  it  not  beyond  his 
power.  But  although  his  230sition  was  a  brilliant  one,  a 
really  strong  and  imperial  position,  it  rested  upon  a  very 
different  and  far  less  secure  foundation  than  the  power 
of  the  Ottos  or  of  Henry  III.  The  only  actual  empire 
which  was  now  possible  would  be  a  federal  sovereignty 
— the  overlordship  of  fully  independent  and  self-govern- 
ing states.  It  could  no  longer  rest  upon  the  solid  sup- 
port of  a  great  nation  which  would  look  upon  it  as  the 
expression  of  its  national  life. 

Shortly  after  the  Peace  of  Constance,  however,  an  ad- 
vantage was  secured  by  Frederick  which  promised  to 
restore,  in  large  measure  at  least,  all  that  the  emperor 
had  lost  in  this  way,  and  which  determined  the  character 
of  the  final  contest  between  the  empire  and  the  papacy. 
He  obtained  for  his  son  Henry,  already  acknowledged  as 
his  successor,  the  hand  of  Constance,  heiress  of  the  Nor- 
man kingdom,  which  included  Sicily  and  southern  Italy. 
If  this  could  be  made,  as  a  solid  and  centralized  state, 
the  basis  of  an  imperial  power,  possibly,  having  this  ad- 
vantage to  begin  with,  all  Italy  could  be  consolidated, 
and  the  same  thing  could  then  be  done  in  Germany,  and 
certainly,  from  its  geographical  position,  the  Norman 
kingdom  would  be  more  suitable  than  the  German  for  the 
centre  of  a  world  empire.  This  was  a  possibility  full  of 
the  greatest  danger  to  the  j)apacy,  surrounding  its  little 
territory  ^^dth  a  strong  imperial  state,  and  the  popes  did 
not  fail  to  see  the  danger. 

Notwithstanding  his  short  reign,  Henry  VI.  was  in 


254  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

many  respects  the  most  interesting  of  the  Hohenstau- 
fen  emperors,  and  he  was  probably  the  ablest  of  them 
all.  His  Sicilian  kingdom  he  obtained  only  after  a  long 
resistance,  but  he  obtained  it  at  last,  and  in  such  a 
way  that  he  was  really  an  absolute  sovereign  there.  At- 
tempted movements  in  opposition  in  Germany  he  suc- 
ceeded in  overcoming.  The  pope  was  powerless  against 
him,  and  he  disposed  of  a  pai"t  of  the  papal  territory  in 
Italy  as  if  it  were  his  own.  Supported  by  so  much  real 
strengih,  his  imperial  ideas  were  of  the  highest  and  wid- 
est, and  the  actual  international  influence  which  he  exer- 
cised in  the  last  year  or  two  of  his  life  was  greater  than 
that  of  any  other  emperor.  He  had  formed  a  definite 
plan  for  the  consoHdatiou  of  Germany  and  Sicily  into  a 
single  monarchy,  hereditary  instead  of  elective,  and  his 
success  seemed  altogether  likely  when  suddenly  he  died, 
in  1197,  in  his  thirty-second  year,  leaving  his  son,  Fred- 
erick, three  years  old. 

In  Germany  there  followed  a  double  election,  his 
brother  Philip  representing  the  Hohenstaufen  party,  and 
Otto,  the  son  of  Henry  the  Lion,  the  Guelf  and  papal 
party,  and  in  the  civil  strife  which  resulted  the  princes 
rapidly  recovered  the  ground  which  they  had  lost  in  the 
last  few  years. 

In  Rome,  a  few  weeks  after  the  death  of  Henry,  In- 
nocent III.  was  elected  pope.  Under  him  the  papal 
power,  without  a  real  rival  and  strengthened  by  the  gen- 
eral trend  of  European  affairs  dm-ing  the  past  century, 
rose  to  its  highest  point.  He  forced  the  strongest  of 
European  sovereigns  to  obey  him ;  he  disposed  of  the 
imperial  title  almost  as  openly  as  Hemy  III.  had  of  the 
papal ;  he  bestowed  on  several  princes  the  title  of  king, 
and  established  a  circle  of  vassal  kingdoms  almost  com- 
pletely around  the  circumference  of  Europe.  The  im- 
perial position  as  the  head  of  Christendom,  which  Henry 


THE   EMPIRE   AISJD   THE   PAPACY  255 

VI.  had  for  a  moment  appeared  to  occupy,  he  held  in 
reality  for  many  years.  He  died  in  1216,  just  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  reign  of  Frederick  II. 

Eelieved  thus  at  the  start  of  a  rival  with  whom  he 
could  hardly  expect  to  cope,  and  whose  successor  was  his 
inferior,  Frederick  II.  took  up  with  earnestness  and 
ability  the  plans  of  his  father.  AVith  a  more  absolute 
control  of  Sicily  than  any  earlier  king,  with  large  military 
strength  drawn  from  Germany,  with  the  prestige  of  a 
successful  crusade,  he  seemed  about  to  accomplish  what 
his  grandfather  had  failed  to  do,  to  reduce  the  cities  of 
north  Italy  to  the  condition  of  his  Norman  kingdom  un- 
der an  immediate  absolutism.  For  a  few  years  follow- 
ing his  great  victory  of  Cortenuova,  in  1237,  his  final 
success  seemed  certain,  and  the  papacy  seemed  utterly 
powerless  to  resist  him  fuiiher. 

But  the  strength  of  his  position  was  more  apparent 
than  real.  His  resources  were  mainly  drawn  from  Sicily, 
and  though  rich,  Sicily  showed  signs  of  exhaustion  un- 
der the  strain.  The  support  of  Germany  had  been  se- 
cured only  by  concessions  which  sanctioned  in  legal  form 
by  royal  chai-ter  the  practical  independence  which  the 
princes,  both  ecclesiastical  and  lay,  had  secured,  and 
made  it  still  greater  by  further  sacrifice  of  royal  rights. 
But  what  he  had  gained  by  such  means  was  utterly  inse- 
cure because  Germany  was  so  divided  by  local  and  per- 
sonal interests  that  civil  strife,  and  almost  anarchy,  was 
certain  to  appear  at  the  first  favorable  moment.  The 
Italian  cities  were  by  no  means  so  completely  overcome 
as  they  seemed,  nor  was  the  papacy.  Franco  and  Eng- 
land had  no  wish  to  see  the  head  of  the  church  entirely 
overthrown  atd  the  papal  seat  left  vacant,  as  it  was  for 
two  years  on  the  death  of  Celestine  IV.  in  1241. 

Finally,  the  next  pope.  Innocent  IV.,  who  as  bishop 
had  been  the  emperor's  friend,  but  as  pope  must  be  his 


356  MKDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOlSr 

enemy,  succeeded  in  escaping  to  France,  and  at  Lyons 
held  a  council  of  the  church  where  Frederick  was  de- 
posed from  the  empire.  This  acted  as  a  signal  for  all 
liis  enemies.  Civil  war  broke  out  in  Germany,  and  an 
opposition  king  was  elected  there.  The  cities  in  north 
Italy  rebelled  and  gathered  new  strength.  Misfortune 
after  misfortune  befell  the  emperor,  and,  though  he  could 
not  be  conquered,  his  power  was  gone. 

After  Frederick's  death,  in  1250,- the  empire  could 
never  be  restored.  The  great  states  which  had  com- 
posed it  fell  apart ;  within  themselves  they  were  broken 
to  fragments  and  for  a  time  anarchy  reigned  almost 
everywhere.  After  some  time  the  German  kingdom 
and  the  empire  reappeared  in  name.  But  the  old 
medieval  empire  was  no  longer  possible.  It  had  been 
completely  overthroAvn  and  destroyed,  not  in  truth  by 
its  rival,  the  papacy,  but  by  the  conditions  of  a  new  age, 
by  the  forces  which  were  turning  the  medieval  wor-ld 
into  the  modern,  and  they  made  its  reconstruction  be- 
yond the  power  of  man. 

But  for  the  moment  the  papacy  was  left  A\dtliout  a 
rival.  Its  victory  seemed  complete  and  its  pretensions 
rose  accordingly.  It  appeared  about  to  step  into  the 
vacant  place,  and  to  be  on  the  point  of  assuming  the  im- 
perial titles  and  prerogatives,  when  it  found  itself  con- 
fronted Avith  a  new  enemy,  as  determined  as  the  old  one 
and  far  stronger,  an  enemy  whose  success  over  its  polit- 
ical pretensions  was  destined  to  be  complete,  the  new 
spirit  of  national  patriotism  and  independence. 

It  is  as  impossible  here,  as  elsewhere,  to  determine 
what  history  would  have  been  if  the  thing  which  did 
not  happen  had  occurred.  But  if  it  was  an  inherent 
tendency,  as  it  seems  to  have  been,  of  either  of  these 
two  great  powers  to  establish  a  universal  empire  over 


THE   EMPIRE   AISTD   THE   PAPACY  257 

Christendom,  if  this  was  the  object  for  which,  conscious- 
ly or  unconsciously,  either  was  striving,  the  one  thing 
which  prevented  such  a  result  was  the  opposition  of  the 
other.  At  the  time  when  the  danger  was  the  greatest 
there  was  no  other  power  in  Europe  which  could  have 
offered  sufficient  resistance  to  either  of  them.  If  there 
was  such  a  danger  it  was  the  greatest  from  the  papacy, 
for  the  strength  which  it  derived  from  the  church  was 
far  more  real  and  eifective  for  such  a  purpose  than  any 
which  the  empii-e  could  have  drawn,  as  things  were, 
from  Germany  and  Italy  or  from  the  theory  of  the  em- 
pire. The  Holy  Roman  Empire  may  have  entailed  loss 
and  suffering,  which  seemed  as  if  they  would  never  end, 
upon  Germans  and  Italians,  but  if  they  succeeded  in 
holding  off  the  formation  of  a  theocratic  absolutism 
over  Europe  until  the  modern  nations  were  strong 
enough  to  protect  themselves,  their  sacrifices  secured  the 
future  of  civilization  and  the  possibility  of  their  own 
national  existence  to-day. 
17 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THE  CRUSADES 


In  following  the  liistoiy  of  the  empire  and  the  papacy 
in  the  last  chapter  we  have  passed  out  of  the  early  middle 
ages  into  a  new  and  different  time.  Between  the  date 
at  which  that  chapter  opened  and  the  date  at  whicli  it 
closed  a  great  change  had  taken  place.  New  causes  had 
begun  to  work.  New  forces  had  been  set  in  operation  or 
old  ones  greatly  intensitied,  and  the  face  of  history  had 
been  transformed.  In  other  words,  we  have  passed  in 
that  interval  the  turning-point  of  the  middle  ages. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  history  of  the  first  part  of  the 
middle  ages,  the  introduction  of  the  German  element, 
which  is  so  important  in  the  modern  races,  and  we  have 
traced  the  rise  and  some  part  of  the  history  of  the  three 
great  medieval  creations — ^the  Church,  the  Empire,  and 
Feudalism.  We  have  seen  the  German  empire  of 
Charlemagne  reinforce  the  Roman  idea  of  world  unity, 
and  in  the  breaking  up  of  his  empire  the  modern  nations 
of  Europe  have  taken  shape.  They  have  by  no  means 
as  5'et  obtained  their  final  form,  even  in  their  geograph- 
ical outline,  far  less  in  government,  but  they  have  found 

'  There  is  as  yet,  in  English,  no  adequate  account  of  the  whole  cru- 
sading age,  giving  the  results  of  recent  investigations.  See  Cox,  The 
Crusades  ;  Pears,  Fall  of  Constanfinople,  for  the  fourth,  and,  especially, 
Archer,  Crusade  of  Rkhnrdl.,  in  the  series  entitled  English  History 
by  Contemporary  Writers,  for  the  third  Crusade. 


THE   CRnSADES  259 

the  places  which  they  are  to  occupy,  they  have  begun  the 
process  of  growth  which  is  to  result  iu  their  preseut 
government,  and  the}'  are  easily  distinguishable  and 
have  begun  to  a  certain  extent  to  distinguish  themselves 
from  one  another  in  race  and  language.  But  it  is  still 
the  first  half  of  the  middle  ages.  Some  faint  signs  may 
show  themselves  here  and  there  of  the  beginning  of  bot^ 
ter  things  and  of  a  renewal  of  progress,  somewhat  greater 
activity  in  commerce,  move  frequent  eagerness  to  know, 
and  a  better  understanding  of  the  sources  of  knowledge, 
some  improvements  in  writing  and  in  art.  But  in  all  the 
main  features  of  ci\'ilization  the  conditions  which  fol- 
lowed the  German  settlements  remain  v.itli  little  change 
and  only  slight  advance.  But  the  crusades  are  not  over 
when  we  find  ourselves  in  an  age  of  great  changes  and 
relatively  of  rapid  progress. 

We  must  now  return  and  take  up  the  age  of  transition 
which  leads  from  the  earlier  stage  to  the  later,  and  as- 
certain, if  we  can,  the  impulse  which  imparted  fresh  life 
to  the  old  forces  and  awakened  the  new.  This  age  of 
transition  is  the  age  of  the  crusades,  the  pivot  upon 
which  tlie  middle  ages  turned  from  the  darkness  and 
disorder  of  the  earlier  time  to  the  greater  light  and 
order  of  modern  times.  The  age  of  the  crusades,  then, 
is  a  great  revolutionary  age.  Like  the  age  of  the  fall  of 
Rome,  or  of  the  revival  of  learning  and  the  Reformation, 
or  of  the  French  revolution,  it  is  an  age  in  which  hu- 
manity passes  through  excitement  and  stimulus  and 
struggle,  on  into  a  new  stage  of  its  development,  in 
which  it  puts  off  the  old  and  becomes  new. 

The  occasion  of  the  crusades  was  Mohammedanism. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century  Arabia  had  been 
revolutionized  by  the  teaching  of  Mohammed.  Putting 
into  definite  and  striking  form  the  unconscious  ideas  and 


260    ■  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION- 

aspirations  of  liis  people,  and  adding  a  central  and  Imifyr 
iug  teaching,  and  inspiring  and  elevating  notions  from 
varioiis  -foreign  sources,  lie  had  transformed  a  few  scat- 
tered tribes  into  a  great  nation  and  sent  them  forth  un- 
der a' blazing  enthusiasm  upon  a  career  of  conquesten- 
tirely  unparalleled  in  its  motive  forces,  and  also  iii  its 
extent,  unless  by  one  or  two  Mongolian  conquerors. 

This  age  of  conquest  lasted  till  about  750  A.D.,  and 
was  then  succeeded  by  an  equally  rapid  and  astonishing 
civilization,  with  which  we  are  all  somewhat  familiar  from 
the  complete  picture  of  it  which  has  been  preserved  in 
the  "  Arabian  Nights."  It  was  a  civilization  not  merely  of 
elegance  and  luxury  and  certain  forms  of  art,  nor  merely 
of  commercial  enterprise  and  wealth.  In  the  valleys  of 
the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates  the  Mohammedans  became 
acquainted  with  the  work  of  the  Greeks.  Something  in 
their  own  race  nature  se'ems  to  have  corresponded  to  the 
especially  scientific  tendency  of  the  Greek  mind.  They 
took  up  the  Greek  science  with  very  great  enthusiasm 
and  earnestness,  and  added  to  it  whatever  results  of  a 
similar  sort  they  could  find  among  any  of  the  other 
nations  with  whom  they  came  in  contact — mathematical 
suggestions  from  the  Hindoos,  for  example.  They  did 
better  than  this,  for  they  made  additions  of  their  own  to 
the  stock  of  scientific  ideas  which  they  had  inherited. 
Their  great  work,  however,  was  not  in  the  way  of  new 
scientific  discoveries.  They  made  no  great  or  revolu- 
tionary advance  in  any  one  of  the  sciences.  They  made 
new  observations.  They  collected  and  recorded  many 
facts.  They  discovered  new  processes  and  methods. 
Their  own  scientific  work  was  all  of  that  long  and  patient 
sort,  of  preparation  and  collection  and  gradual  improve- 
ment of  tools  which  precedes  every  apparently  sudden 
achievement  of  genius.  They  handed  over  the  work  of  the 
Greeks  much  better  prepared  to  lead  to  such  an  advance 


THE   CKUSADES  261 

than  when  the  Greeks  left  it.  But  their  great  Ayork  was 
to  hand  it  over.  While  the  world  of  western  Christen- 
dom was  passing  through  its  darkest  ages,  the  forgotten 
sciences  which  the  Greeks  had  begun  were  cherished 
"among  the  Mohammedans,  and  enriched  from  other 
sources,  and  hnally  given  up  to  Christendom  again  when 
the  nations  of  the  West  had  become  conscious  of  the 
necessity  and  the  possibility  of  scientific  work  and  ambi- 
tious to  begin  it.  This  was  the  most  important  perma- 
nent work  for  general  civilization  of  the  first  Mohamme- 
dan age. 

The  first  flood  of  the  Arabian  conquest  had  swejjt 
over  the  Holy  Land,  and  the  sepulchre  of  Christ  had 
remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Saracens.  But  for  Mo- 
hammedan as  for  Christian,  these  were  sacred  places, 
and  a  pilgrimage  was  for  him  a  holy  and  pious  duty 
even  more  than  for  his  Christian  neighbor.  While  the 
immediate  successors  of  the  first  conquerors — the  Mo- 
hammedans of  the  southern  races — retained  control  of 
Jerusalem,  the  Christians  were  allowed  free  access  to  its 
shrines,  not  without  intervals  of  harsh  treatment  under  an 
occasional  fanatical  caliph,  and  not  without  some  uneasi- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  Saracens  at  the  rapidly  increas- 
ing numbers  of  the  pilgrims,  especially  as  bands  of  thou- 
sands began  to  appear,  led  hj  princes  or  great  nobles. 

With  the  advance  of  the  Seljuk  Turks,  in  the  eleventh 
century,  new  conditions  were  introduced.  They  were 
a  rough  and  barbarous  people  as  compared  with  the  Sar- 
acens whom  they  supplanted,  and  naturally  of  a  cmel 
disposition.  As  more  and  more  of  Palestine  and  of  its 
ajjproaches  passed  under  their  control,  the  pilgrims  be- 
gan to  meet  with  very  harsh  treatment.  The  great  suf- 
ferings and- the  miraculous  visions  of  Peter  the  Hermit 
are  now  known  to  have  been  the  inventions  of  a  later  age, 
but  if  he  did  not  suffer  what  he  was  fabled  to  have  under- 


262  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

gone,  imcloubtedly  otlier  pilgrims  did  suffer  something  of 
the  sort.  At  last  the  worst  happened,  and  Jerusalem 
fell  info  the  hands  of  the  Turks, 

But  the  immediate  impulse  to  the  first  crusade  came 
from  the  appeal  of  the,  emperor  at  Constantinople  for 
aid.  The  emperor  was  at  this  time  Alexius  Comnenus, 
who  had  struggled  bravely  and  skilfully  for  more  than 
ten  years  against  attacks  from  every  quarter — Seljuks  on 
the  east,  the  Tartar  Petchenegs  in  the  Balkans,  and  the 
ambitious  Kobert  Guiscard  on  the  shores  of  the  Adria- 
tic. He  had  met  with  some  success  and  had  saved  at 
least  a  fragment  of  his  empire,  which  had  been  threat- 
ened with  total  destruction.  But  he  was  not  strong- 
enough  alone  to  make  any  great  headway  against  the 
Turks.  If  Asia  Minor  was  to  be  recovered  and  a  real 
restoration  of  the  empire  to  be  accomplished,  he  must 
have  larger  forces  than  he  could  furnish  from  his  o^n 
unaided  resources.  In  March,  1095,  his  ambassadors 
appealed  to  Christendom  at  the  Council  of  Piacenza, 
held  by  Urban  II.  at  a  moment  of  triumph  over  the  em- 
peror Henry  IV.,  and  later  in  the  year  at  the  Council  of 
Clermont  in  France  the  fiery  eloquence  of  the  pope  sanc- 
tioned the  appeal  and  aroused  the  whole  of  Europe. 

The  response  which  his  appeal  received  in  the  "West 
was,  indeed,  far  beyond  the  emperor's  hopes,  or  wishes 
even.  The  number  of  the  crusaders  was  so  great,  far  be- 
yond any  possibility  of  control  by  him,  that  the  fear  was 
at  once  aroused  in  his  mind  lest  theu-  advance  threat- 
ened his  empire  with  a  mors  serious  danger  than  that 
from  the  Seljuks.  All  of  them,  he  might  well  believe, 
some  of  them  he  knew  already  to  his  cost  in  the  case  of 
the  Normans  of  southern  Italy,  were  actuated  chiefly 
by  motives  of  self-interest  and  the  desire  for  conipiest. 
The  later  attitude  of  the  emperor  toward  his  invited  al- 
lies was  not  without  its  justification. 


THE   CRUSADES  263 

The  response  of  the-  West  to  the  appeal  of  the  East 
for  help  against  the  infidel  was  so  universal  and  over- 
whelming, because  of  the  combination  at  the  moment 
of  a  variety  of  influences  and  causes  tending  to  such  a 
result.  Of  these  we  may  easily  distinguish  three  lead- 
ing influences  which  were  especially  characteristic  of  the 
whole  eleventh  century — the  love  of  military  exploits 
and  adventures,  which  was  beginning,  even  in  that  cen- 
tury, to  express  itself  in  the  institutions  and  practices  of 
chivalry ;  the  theocratic  ideas  which  were  at  that  time 
advancing  the  papacy  so  rapidly  to  its  highest  point  of 
power ;  and  an  ascetic  conception  of  life  and  Christian 
conduct  which,  like  the  last,  was  not  only  cherished  in 
the  church,  but  held  almost  as  strongly  and  unquestion- 
ingly  by  the  great  mass  of  men  of  all  ranks. 

All  the  middle  ages  were  characterized  by  a  restless 
love  of  adventure,  and  by  greater  or  smaller  expeditious 
to  a  distance  to  satisfy  this  feeling  and  to  gain  glory 
and  wealth.  The  knight-errant  is  so  great  a  figure  in 
literature  because  he  was  so  frequent  in  the  life  of  the 
time,  and  even  more  universally  a  part  of  its  ideals 
and  imaginings.  The  knight  -  errant  himself  may  not 
have  been  common  so  early,  but  the  feeling  was  never 
stronger  than  in  the  eleventh  century,  and  especially  so 
among  the  Normans,  who  were  so  prominent  in  the  first 
crusade,  as  the  Norman  conquests  of  southern  Italy  and 
of  England  witness.  But  this  cause,  however  strong,  was 
not  the  decisive  one  in  the  crusades.  Had  it  been  they 
would  not  have  ceased  when  they  did,  for  this  motive 
did  not  cease  Avith  them.  It  never  has  been  more 
active,  indeed,  than  it  is  to-day,  at  least  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  world,  as  Africa,  and  the  Ai'ctic  zone,  and  a  hmi- 
di'ed  other  things  abundantly  testify. 

Nor  was  the  influence  of  the  church,  uor  the  idea 
that  it  represented  God's  government,  and  that  tlirough 


264  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

its  voice  God  spake  and  made  khoAvn  His  will  to  man,^ 
the  one  decisive  influence.  That  these  things  were  so, 
men  thoroughly  believed.  The  growing  strength  and 
clearness  of  the  l3elief  that  God  was  in  the  i)ope,  which 
Avas  a  feature  of  the  reform  movement  of  the  eleventh 
century,  was  one  of  the  great  forces  which  aided  the 
papacy  to  win  its  triumph  over  the  emperor,  and  to 
rise  to  the  summit  of  its  power  over  the  church  and 
over  the  state  as  well.  The  call  of  the  pope  roused 
Europe  to  the  great  crusades,  partly,  at  least,  because  it 
was  to  Europe  the  call  of  God.  But  the  crusades 
ceased  when  they  did,  not  because  the  popes  ceased  to 
urge  them  upon  Christendom,  nor  because  the  Christian 
world  had  ceased  •  to  believe  in  the  inspiration  of  the 
pope,  for  both  these  facts  continued  long  after  the  cru- 
sades had  become  impossible. 

It  is  in  the  universal  prevalence  of  the  third  one  of 
the  influences  which  have,  been  mentioned — the  ascetic 
feeling — that  we  must  find  the  one  decisive  cause  of  the 
crusades.  It  was  the  strong  hold  "jvhich  this  feeling  had 
upon  prince  as  well  as  peasant  which' m^de  the  crusades 
possible  as  a  great  European-  movement.^  It  was  its 
.decline  in  relative  power  as  a  determining  motive  of  life 
which  made  them  no  longer  possible! 

It  is  hard  for  us  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century 
to  understand  how  strong  a  controlling  force  this  feeling 
was  in  a  time  when  the  motives  and  interests  which 
shape  our  modern  life  had  not  come  into  e^dstence,  and 
when   the   nature   and  laws  of  a  spiritual   world   were 

'  In  the  Anglo-Saxon  states,  in  the  first  two  hundred  years  after  their 
conversion,  thirty  kings  and  queens  went  into  the  cloister.  Instances 
of  the  same  thing  are  frequent  in  other  states.  The  passage  in  Ein- 
hard's  Life  of  Oh<irle))Hif/»e,  Chap.  11. ,  on  the  cloister  life  of  Pippin's 
lirother,  Carloman,  is  very  instructive  concerning  the  general  feeling 
toward  monasticism. 


THE   CRUSADES  265 

beyond  the  imderstaucliDg  even  of  the  best.  The  dark 
terrors  of  the  world  of  lost  souls,  which  they  crudely  but 
vividly  pictured  to  their  minds  as  horrible  physical  tor- 
ments, pressed  upon  them  with  a  reality  almost  as 
immediate  as  that  of  the  world  in  which  they  were  really 
living,  "With  their  limited  experience  and  scanty  knowl- 
edge, and  narrow  range  of  interests,  there  were  no 
sources  open  to  them  of  other  impressions  with  which  to 
correct  or  balance  these?.  The  terror  of  an  aw^ul  future 
hung  over  them  constantly  ;  and  to  escape  from  it,  to 
secure  their'  safety  in  the  life  to  come,  was  one  of  the 
most  pressing  and  immediate  necessities  of  the  present . 
life.'  But  ^dth  the  crude  and  physical  conception  of 
the  future  world,  a  crude  and  physical  conception  of  the 
means  of  preparation  for  it  was  inevitable. 

The  history  of  monasticism,  of  pilgrimages,  and  of 
the  wholie  penitential  discipline  of  the  chiu'ch  is  full  of 
instances  to  show  that,  in  those  days,  there  existed 
among  the  highest  and  most  intelligent  classes  of  the 
time  an  intensity  of  belief  in  the  direct  spiritual  efficacy 
of  physical  penances  .which  we  hardly  expect  to  find  to- 
day in  the  most  ignorant  and  superstitious.  A  pilgrim- 
age was  not  an  expression  of  reverence' for  a  saintly  life, 
nor  an  act  of  worship  even.'  It  was  in  itself  a  religious 
act,  securing  merit  ahd'  teward  for  the  one  who  per- 
formed it,  balancing  a  certain  number  of  his  sins,  and 
making  his  escape  from  the  world  of  torment  hereafter 
more  certain.  The  more  distant  and  more  difficult  the 
pilgrimage,  the  more 'meritorious,  especially  if  it  led  to 

'  It  is  not  meant,  of  course,  that  this  was  an  ever-present  dread  from 
which  there  was  no  moment  of  escape.  Life  would  have  heen  impos- 
sible if  that  had  been  the  case.  But  in  order  to  understand  many  of 
the  most  characteristic  features  of  the  first  half  of  the  middle  ages  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  hold  in  mind  the  fact  that,  relatively,  as  com- 
pared with  later  times,  these  feelings  were  a  constant  and  absorbing 
rpalitv  of  life. 


266  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

such  supremely  holy  places  as  those  which  had  been 
sanctified  by  the  presence  of  Christ  himself. 

A  crusade  was  a  stupendous  pilgrimage,  under  espe- 
cially favorable  and  meritorious  conditions,  so  pro- 
claimed universally  and  so  entered  upon  by  the  vast 
majority  of  those  who  took  part  in  it.  So  long  as  this 
motive  influenced  strongly  princes,  and  great  nobles,  and 
the  higher  classes,  the  men  who  really  determined  events, 
the  great  crusades  were  possible.  When  other  interests 
of  a  more  immediate  soit  rose  in  the  place  of  this  motive, 
its  power  declined,  these  men  could  no  longer  be  led  by 
it  in  the  same  way,  and  the  crusades  ceased. 

But  this  last  suggestion  must  be  carried  further  back 
and  recognized  as  of  the  utmost  importance  in  aiding  us 
to  understand  the  reason  for  the  crusades  as  well  as  for 
their  cessation.  It  was  an  essential  condition  of  the 
movement  that  all  these  motives  and  causes  which 
favored  the  crusades  combined  together  in  their  influ- 
ence upon  the  men  of  the  West  at  a  time  when  no  great 
interests  had  arisen  at  home  to  demand  their  attention 
and  their  energies.  The  time  of  the  migration  of  the 
nations  was  past;  even  the  viking  raids  had  ceased. 
The  modern  nations  with  their  problems,  hard  to  solve 
but  pressing  for  solution,  had  not  yet  come  into  exist- 
ence. Commerce  was  in  its  infancy,  the  Third  Estate 
had  hardly  begun  to  form  itself,  and  the  revolution 
which  it  would  work  was  still  far  off.  None  of  these 
existed  as  yet,  with  the  rival  interests  which  they  were 
soon  to  present  to  the  duty  of  maintaining  a  Christian 
kingdom  in  the  Holy  Land,  or  even,  Avith  the  pressure 
of  an  immediate  necessity,  to  the  duty  of  saving  one 
soul  by  a  penitential  pilgrimage.  All  the  energy  and 
enthusiasm  of  the  newly  formed  people  had  no  other 
chaiT^nel  in  which  to  flow.  There  was  no  other  great  and 
worthy  object  to  which  to  devote  themselves,  and  they 


THE   CRUSADES  267 

devoted  themselves  to  this  so  long  as  these  notions 
and  influences  were  not  balanced  by  new  and  opposing 
ones. 

That  these  motives  were  strongly  at  work  through 
the  whole  eleventh  century,  and  gradually  turning  men's 
minds  toward  crusades — toward  armed  expeditions  which 
should  combine  adventurous  warfare  and  rich  conquests 
from  the  Mohammedan  world  with  the  advantages  of 
holy  pilgrimages — can  easily  be  seen.  Single  men  and 
small  parties  some  time  before  had  begun  to  undertake 
the  Christian  duty  of  fighting  the  infidel  wherever  he 
was  to  be  found,  and  as  the  century  drew  to  a  close  their 
numbers  were  constantly  increasing.'  The  little  Chris- 
tian states  of  Spain  were  greatly  aided  in  their  contests 
with  the  Moors  by  reinforcements  of  this  sort,  and  one 
of  these  precrusades  led  to  the  founding  of  the  kingdom 
of  Portugal.  And  also  from  almost  every  state  of  the 
West  devoted  knights  had  gone,  even  by  the  thousand, 
to  aid  the  Greek  emperor  against  the  Turks  before  his 
appeal  to  the  pope.  Some  of  the  Italian  cities  had  com- 
bined their  commercial  interests  and  their  Christian 
duty  in  attacks  upon  the  Saracens  of  the  western  Medi- 
terranean regions.  In  1087  Pisa  and  Genoa,  at  the  insti- 
gation of  Pope  Victor  III.,  and  under  the  holy  banner  of 
St.  Peter,  gained  important  successes  in  Tunis,  and  com- 
pelled the  emir  to  recognize  the  overlordshij)  of  the  pope. 
A  little  earlier  Pope  Gregory  VII.  had  conceived  the 
plan  of  sending  a  great  army  against  the  East  to  re- 
establish there  the  true  faith,  but  his  contest  with  the 
Emperor  Henry  IV.  had  allowed  him  no  opportunity  to 
carry  out  the  plan.  The  overwhelming  enthusiasm  of 
the  first  crusade  was  the  sudden  breaking  forth  of  a  feel- 
ing which  had  long  been  growing  in  intensity,  because 
now  it  had  gained  the  highest  possible  sanction  as  the 
*  Kugler,  Kreugzuge,  p.  8. 


268  ]VI-EDi:^VAL   CIVILIZATIOX 

will  of  God  and  q,  favorable  opportunity  to  express  itself 
in  action.     ". 

The  crusades  continued  from  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
to  near  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  a  period  of 
about  two  hundred  years.'  Diuiug  this  time  eight  cru-  , 
sades,  as  they  are  commonly  reckoned,  occurred,  with 
many  smaller  expeditions,  of  Mie  same'  soi^t.  Qf  these  at 
least  the  first  four,  falling  within  the  first  hundred  years, 
or  barely  more,  are  great  European  movements  shared 
by  many  nations  and  thoroughly  stirring  the  life  of  the 
West.  ' 

The  first -crusade  was  led  by  princes  and  great  nobles 
(^  Normandy  and  V)f  the  royal  house  of  France  and  of 
Toulo"iise,  of  eastern  Germany  and  southern  Italy.  It 
went  overland  to  Constantinople,  forced  its  way  through 
Asia  Minor,  captured  Antioch  from  the  Turks  after  a 
long  siege,  and  with  greatly  reduced  numbers,  in  1099, 
stormed  Jerusalem,  then  in  possession  of  the  Fatimite 
caliphs  of  Egypt.  Its  conquests  it  formed  into  a  loosely 
organized  feudal  state,  the,  kingdom  of  Jerusalem,  divided 
into  a  number  of  great  fiefs  practically^  independent. 

The  second  crusade,  fifty  years  later,  was  led  by  the 
Emperor  Konrad  III.  and  by  King  Louis  VII.  of  France 
on  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Edessa,  the  outpost  of  the- 
kingdom  of  Jerusalem  against  the  Turks.  It  attempted 
to  follow  the  overland  route,  but  failed  to  find  a  passage 
through  Asia  Minor,  and  the  remnants  of  the  armies 
made  the  last  part  of  the  journey  by  sea.  In  the  Holy 
Land  it  attempted  nothing  but  a  perfunctory  attack  on 
Damascus, 

The  third,  which  is  perhaps  the  best  known  of  the 
crusades,  was  set  in  motion  by  the  capture  of  Jerusalem 
by  Saladin  in  1187.  It  was  led  by  Eichard  the  Ljon- 
heart  of  England,  Philip  Augustus  of  France,  and  the 
Emperor  Frederick   I.     The  emperor   followed  the  old. 


THE   CRUSADES       x;         '  269 

overland  route  and  died  in  Asia  Minoi-,  Eicliard  and 
Philip  made  the  passage  wholly  by  sea.  The  difference 
in  character  of  these  two  men,  and  the  many  causes  of 
disagreement  which  existed  between  them,  prevented 
any  great  success,  and  the  crusade  continued  to  be  a 
fail*ire  after  Philip  returifed  to  France,  largely  because 
of  Richard's  instability  andiack  of  fixed  purpose. 

A  decade  after,, tinder  the  greatest  of  the  popes,  Inno- 
cent III.,  the  fourth  crusade  assembled,  with  high  hopes, 
in  northern  Italy  to  be  transported  to  Palestine  by  /the 
Venetians,  but  it  never  saw  its  destination.  It  was 
turned  into  a  great -commercial  speculation,  captiu'ed 
Constantinople,  and  erected  there  the  "Latin  empir«i 
another  feudal  state,  which  lasted  j)ast  the  middle  of  the' 
thirteenth  century. 

The  later  crusades  need  not  be  noticed.  They  are 
expeditions  of  single  nations  and  lack  the  general  char- 
acter of  the  first  four.  The  Emperor  Frederick  II.  by 
treaty  re-established  for  a  brief  time  the  kingdom  of 
Jerusalem  ;  and  St.  Louis,  at  his  death,  in  1270,  closed 
the  series  with  the  true  spirit  and  high  Christian  motives 
of  the  ideal  crusader. 

Ill  this  line  of  events  two  things  are  to  be  especially 
'  noticed  as  characteristic,  and  as  of  assistance  in  enabling 
us  to  see  the  connection  between  the  events  themselves 
and  the  results  wli^ich  followed  from  them. 

One  of  them  is"  the  different  part  taken  in  these  expedi- 
tions by  the  states,  of  Italy  as  comi3ared  with  the  other 
states.  The  Normans  of  the  south  enter  into  the  first 
crusade  like  the  other  Europeans,  and  in  some  of  the 
later  crusades  the  feudal  parts  of  Italy  have  their  share. 
But,  even  in  the  first  crusade,  some  of  the  city  states  of 
Italy  appear  as  furnishing  ships  and  conveying  supplies  . 
to  the  real  crusaders,  and  as  time  goes  on  this  comes  to 
be  a  more  and  more  important  share  of  the  movement 


270  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

which  falls  to  them.     Italy  does  not  furnish  warriors  ;  it 

fm-nislies  ships,  transports  men  and  supplies,  not  for  re- 
wards in  the  world  to  come  but  for  cash,  sells  and  buys, 
and  is  constantly  on  the  watch  for  commercial  advantages. 
The  other  fact  is  the  gradual  chaDge  in  the  route  by 
which  the  crusaders  reached  the  Holy  Land  as  the  period 
advanced.  The  first  went  wholly  overland ;  the  second 
almost  wholly,  making  only  the  last  stage  by  water. 
Two  of  the  three  divisions  of  the  third  crusade  w^ent 
wholly  by  water,  and  all  the  later  crusades,  even  that  of 
Andrew  of  Hungary.  There  was  a  constantly-increasing 
demand  for  ships  and  sailors,  and  a  constantly  increasing 
ability  to  meet  that  demand. 

Before  taking  up  in  detail  the  results  of  the  crusades 
it  is  important  to  notice  one  fact  in  the  general  history 
of  the  middle  ages  of  which  they  are  at.  once  a  sign  and 
a  further  cause.  They  were  a  great  common  movement 
of  all  Europe,  shared  in  alike  in  motive  and  spirit  and 
action,  and  on  equal  terms,  by  all  the  nations  of  the 
West  and  by  people  of  every  rank.  They  are  an  indica- 
tion, therefore,  that  the  days  of  isolation  and  separation 
are  passing  away.  •  In  one  direction,  at  least,  common 
feelings  and  common  ideals  have  come  into  existence 
through  all  the  nations,  and  a  consciousness  of  the  com- 
mon interests  of  the  Christian  world  as  against  the 
Mohammedan.  And  these  feelings  were  now  held  not 
merely  by  a  person  here  and  there,  but  by  the  great  mass 
of  men.  Christendom,  as  a  great  international  commu- 
nity which  had  never  entirely  ceased  to  exist  since  the 
days  of  Roman  unity,  had  come  to  a  clearer  conscious- 
ness of  itself. 

That  consciousness  was  now  to  grow  constantly  clearer 
and  to  embrace  by  degrees  all  sides  of  ci\dlization.  The 
crusades  are  themselves  a  great  cause  leading  to  this  re- 


THE   CRUSADES  271 

suit.  By  bringing  together  the  men  of  all  nations,  led 
by  a  common  purpose  and  striving  for  a  "common  object, 
they  made  them  better  acquainted  with  one  another, 
created  common  needs  and  desires,  and  immensely  stim- 
ulated intercommunication  of  all  kinds — manifestly  the 
necessary  conditions  of  a  community  of  nations.  It  was 
because  these  things  were  so  generally  wanting  that  the 
feudal  isolation  of  the  preceding  age  had  been  possible. 
When  they  began  to  exist  and  to  increase  rapidly,  as  they 
did  under  the  influence  of  the  crusades,  the  modern  com- 
mon life  of  the  world  had  begun  to  form  itself,  and  a 
great  step  had  been  taken  out  of  the  middle  ages. 

It  was  no  slight  thing,  also,  that  the  age  of  the  cru- 
sades was  an  age  of  intense  excitement  which  seized 
equally  upon  those  who  stayed  and  those  who  went.  It 
was  a  time  when  all  men  were  stirred  by  a  deep  enthu- 
siasm, and  the  almost  stationary  feudal  society  was  pro- 
foundly moved  through  all  its  ranks.  It  is  a  common 
observation  that  whatever  thus  awakens  the  emotions  of 
men  and  throws  society  into  a  ferment  of  feeling  and  ac- 
tion is  a  great  impelling  force  which  sets  all  the  wheels  of 
progi-ess  in  motion  and  opens  a  new  age  of  achievement. 

Nor  is  it  to  be  overlooked  that  they  were  on  the  whole 
generous  motives  and  noble  and  high  ideals  which  moved 
men  in  the  crusades.  There  was  selfishness  and  base- 
ness in  plenty  no  doubt,  but  the  controlling  emotion  with 
the  most  of  the  crusaders  was,  beyond  question,  a  lofty 
and  ideal  enthusiasm. 

In  the  way  of  the  increase  of  actual  knowledge  and  of 
a  direct  influence  upon  learning,  the  immediate  work  of 
the  crusades  was  not  great.  The  Greeks  in  some  re- 
spects, and  the  Saracens  in  many,  were  far  in  advance  of 
the  crusaders.  The  Christians  had  many  things  to  learn 
of  the  Mohammedans,  and  did  in  the  end  leam  them  ;  but 
it  was  not  in  the  East  nor  in  immediate  connection  with 


^7^  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  crusades.  Some  few  things  were  learned  directly, 
especially  in  the  line  of  geographical  knowledge,  but  the 
great  influence  of  the  crusades  upon  learning  was  indi- 
rect, in  creating  a  consciousness  of  ignorance  and  awak- 
ening a  desire  to  know,  so  that  the  work  of  the  crusades 
in  this  direction  was  to  raise  the  level  of  general  intelli- 
gence rather  than  to  increase  very  greatly  the  knowledge 
of  specific  facts. 

They  gave  to  the  people  who  took  part  in  them  the 
advantages  of  travel.  They  brought  them  into  contact 
with  new  scenes  and  new  peoples,'  and  showed  them 
other  wajs  of  doing  things.  Above  all,  they  made  them 
conscious  of  the  fact  that  there  were  people  in  the  world 
superior  to  themselves  in  knowledge  and  government 
and  manners  and  all  civilization,  and  that  they  had 
themselves  many  things  to  learn  and  to  reform  before 
they  could  really  claim  the  high  rank  in  the  world  which 
they  had  supposed  they  occupied.  This  fact  is  curioitsly 
illustrated  in  the  increasing  respect  which  the  wi'iters  of 
the  age  show  for  the  Mohammedans,  and  it  is  a  most  im- 
portant fact  in  the  history  of  civilization.  The  mind  of 
the  West  was  aroused  and  stimulated  by  contact  with 
a  higher  civilization,  although  it  had  not  yet  discovered 
its  best  teachers  nor  the  right  road  by  which  to  reach 
true  science.  The  intense  intellectual  eagerness  of  the 
last  part  of  the  twelfth  and  of  the  thirteenth  centuries, 
though  it  led  into  the  barren  wastes  of  scholasticism, . 
was  the  beginning  of  modern  science  and  the  first  step 
toward  the  revival  of  learnins;. 

We  can  trace  the  beginnings  of  this  desire  to  know,  as 
we  can  of  so  many  other  things  which  we  call  the  results 
of  the  crusades,  to  times  before  these  began.  Even  in 
the  tenth  century  can  be  found  many  indications  that 
the  mind  of  Europe  was  beginning  to  awake,  to  feel  an 
eager  desire  to  learn,  and  even  to  be  conscious  of  the  fact 


N 


THE   CP.USADES  273 

that  tliey  must  turn  to  tlie  Arabs  for  instruction.  Ger- 
bei*t  of  Eheims — Sylvester  II. — is  a  precursor  in  spirit 
of  Roger  Bacon  and  of  Laurentius  Valla,  as  Scotus 
Erigena — in  the  century  before — is  of  his  greater  name- 
sake of  the  thirteenth  century.  We  should  like  to  be- 
lieve also  that  the  heretics  who  were  burned  at  Orleans 
in  1022  represent  a  faint  stirring  of  that  critical  reason 
which  makes  a  clearer  demand  in  Abelard  in  regard  to 
theology,  and  in  the  Albigenses  and  Waldenses  in  regard 
to  practical  Christianity. 

But  it  is  only  in  the  thirteenth  century  that  we  reach 
the  first  gi'eat  intellectual  age  since  ancient  history 
closed,  one  of  the  greatest,  indeed,  of  all  history.  If  the 
work  to  which  it  especially  devoted  itself,  an  abstract 
and  speculative  philosophy,  has  been  left  behind  by  the 
world's  advance,  it  was  nevertheless,  in  its  day,  one  great 
step  in  that  adA^ance,  and  in  the  founding  of  the  univer- 
sities the  century  made  a  direct  and  permanent  contribu- 
tion to  the  civilization  of  the  world. 

The  strongest  and  most  decisive  of  the  immediate  in- 
fluences of  the  crusades  was  that  which  they  exerted 
upon  commerce.  They  created  a  constant  demand  for 
the  transportation  of  men  and  of  supplies,  built  up 
of  themselves  a  great  carrying  trade,  improved  the  art 
of  na^dgation,  opened  new  markets,  taught  the  use  of 
new  commodities,  created  new  needs,  made  knoAvn  new 
routes  and  new  peoples  Avith  Avhom  to  trade,  stimulated 
explorations,  and  in  a  hundred  ways  Avhich  cannot  be 
mentioned  introduced  a  new  commercial  age  Avhose  char- 
acter and  results  must  be  examined  in  detail  hereafter. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  direct  results  of  the  cru- 
sades in  this  direction  Avas  the  extensive  exploration  of 
Asia  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  by  Euro- 
pean travellers,  of  Avliom  Marco  Polo  is  the  most  familiar 
example,  but  only  one  of  a  host  of  men  almost  equally 
18 


274  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

deserving  of  fame.  There  is  nothing  which  illustrates 
better  than  these  explorations  the  stimulus  of  the  cru- 
sades, the  energy  and  the  broadening  of  mind,  and  the 
new  ideas  which  are  characteristic  of  the  age. 

In  the  political  sphere  the  age  is  as  full  of  change  as 
elsewhere.  The  details  must  be  reserved  for  a  future 
chapter,  but  the  general  features  may  be  indicated  here. 
The  great  fact  which  is  everywhere  characteristic  of  the 
time  is  the  rise  into  power  of  the  Third  Estate  and  the 
fall  of  the  feudal  noble  from  the  political  position  whicH 
he  had  occupied.  It  will  be  seen  later  that,  in  the  main, 
this  was  due  to  the  increase  of  commerce  and  only  indi- 
rectly to  the  crusades,  but  in  one  or  two  ways  they 
directly  aided  in  the  process.  The  noble,  influenced 
only  by  the  feelings  of  his  class,  and  thrown  upon  his 
own  resoui'ces  for  the  expenses  of  his  crusade,  did  not 
count  the  cost,  or  he  hoped  to  gain  greater  possessions 
in  the  Holy  Land  than  those  he  sacrificed  at  home. 
Large  numbers  of  the  old  families  were  ruined  and  dis- 
appeared, and  their  possessions  fell  to  anyone  who  was 
able  to  take  advantage  of  the  situation.  Whether  these 
lands  passed  into  the  hands  of  rich  burghers,  as  they  did 
in  some  cases,  or  not,  was  a  matter  of  little  importance, 
since  the  decline  of  the  old  nobility  and  the  substitution 
for  it  of  a  new  nobility  was  a  great  relative  gain  for  the 
Third  Estate  as  it  was  for  the  crown. 

Wlierever  the  royal  power  was  in  a  position  to  take 
advantage  of  the  changes  of  the  time,  as  was  notably  the 
case  in  France,  it  gained  constantly  in  relative  strength, 
and  by  the  time  the  crusades  were  over,  feudalism  had 
disappeared  as  a  real  political  institution,  and  the  mod- 
ern state  had  taken  its  place— not  that  the  resistance  of 
feudalism  to  this  revolution  was  by  any  means  over,  but 
the  opportunity  for  a  complete  victory  was  clearly  before 
the  king. 


THE   CRUSADES  275 

Of  considerable  significance  also,  in  this  direction,  is 
the  part  which  the  lower  classes  of  the  population  took 
in  the  crusades,  seen  most  clearly  perhaps  in  the  first. 
It  has  the  appearance  to  us  of  a  general  movement 
among  the  peasantry,  and  it  was  a  sign,  certainly,  of  dis- 
content with  their  lot,  a  vague  and  ignorant  feeling  that 
improvement  was  possible  in  some  way.  It  was  an  evi- 
dence also  of  some  new  confidence  and  self-reliance  on 
their  part,  and  no  doubt  it  did  in  some  instances  improve 
theii'  condition.  This  movement  is,  on  the  whole,  how- 
ever, to  be  regarded  like  the  peasant  wars  of  later  times, 
to  which  it  is  in  its  real  character  very  similar,  rather  as 
the  sign  of  a  revolution  which  is  slowly  working  itself  out 
in  other  ways  than  as  in  itself  a  real  means  of  advance. 

These  results,  which  have  been  briefly  stated,  when 
taken  together  indicate,  clearly  enough  perhaps,  the  im- 
mediate changes  which  the  crusades  produced,  and  also 
why  they  came  to  an  end  when  they  did.  The  changes 
which  they  represent  had  created  a  new  world.  The  old 
feelings  and  judgments  and  desires  which  had  made  the 
crusades  possible  no  longer  existed  in  their  relative 
strength.  New  interests  had  arisen  which  men  had  not 
known  before,  but  which  now  seemed  to  them  of  such 
supreme  and  immediate  importance  that  they  could  not 
be  called  away  from  them  to  revive  past  and  forgotten 
interests.  The  less  intelligent  part  of  the  people,  the 
dreamer,  or  the  mind  wholly  centred  in  the  church, 
might  still  be  led  by  the  old  feelings,  and  might  desire 
to  continue  the  crusade,  but  the  working  mind  of  Europe 
could  no  longer  be  moved. 

One  point  which  has  been  briefly  referred  to  already 
needs  to  be  distinctly  emphasized  in  closing  the  account 
of  the  age.  The  crusades  work  great  changes,  they 
clearly  impart  a  powerful  impetus  to  advance  in  every 
direction ;  a  far  more  rapid  progress  of  civilization  dates 


276  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

from  them.  But  it  seems  to  be  equally  clear  tliat  in  no 
single  case  do  they  originate  the  change.  The  begin- 
nings of  the  advance  go  farther  back  into  the  compara- 
tively unprogressive  ages  that  precede  them.  The  same 
changes  would  have  taken  place  without  them,  though 
more  slowly  and  with  greater  difficulty.  Indeed  we  may 
say  of  the  age  of  the  crusades,  as  of  every  great  revolu- 
tionary age  in  history,  that  it  is  a  time,  not  so  much  of 
the  creation  of  new  forces,  as  of  the  breaking  forth  in 
unusual  and  unrestrained  action  of  forces  which  have 
been  for  a  long  time  at  work  beneath  the  surface,  quietly 
and  unobserved. 

One  most  prominent  institution  of  the  middle  ages, 
which  deserves  a  fuller  treatment  than  can  be  given  it 
here,  rose  to  its  height  during  the  crusades  and  in  close 
connection  with  them — that  of  chivalry.  It  goes  back 
for  the  origin  both  of  its  forms  and  of  its  ideals  to  the 
early  Germans.  Certain  forms  which  the  primitive  Ger- 
man tribes  had  in  common — arming  the  young  warrior 
and  the  single  combat  for  instance — and  certain  concep- 
tions of  character  and  conduct  which  they  especially  em- 
phasized— personal  bravery,  truth -telling,  and  the  respect 
for  woman  among  them — were  developed,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  church  and  of  Christianity,  into  the  later 
ceremonies  of  chivahy,  partly  solemn  and  partly  barbar- 
ous, and  into  the  lofty  but  narrow  ideal  of  conduct  which 
it  cherished.  The  arrangements  of  the  feudal  system 
rendered  easy  the  prevalence  of  its  forms,  and  the  spirit 
of  the  crusading  age  heightened  its  conception  of  charac- 
ter and  made  it  seem  like  a  imiversal  duty,  so  that  it 
came,  for  two  or  three  centuries,  to  occupy  a  large  place 
in  the  life  of  the  time,  and  relatively  a  larger  place  in 
literature  than  in  life. 

In  the  fifteenth  centurj  chivalry  as  an  external  insti- 


THE   CRUSADES  277 

tution,  a  matter  of  forms  and  ceremonies,  rapidly  de- 
clined. The  ideal  of  social  conduct  and  character  which 
it  created  never  j^assed  away,  on  the  contrary,  but  be- 
came a  permanent  influence  in  civilization.  In  English 
we  express  very  much  the  same  ideal  in  certain  uses  of 
the  word  gentleman,  in  the  phrase  "  the  true  gentle- 
man," for  example,  and,  in  most  respects,  no  better 
description  of  that  character  can  be  made  now  than  was 
made  by  Chaucer,  in  the  description  of  the  knight,  in  his 
prologue  to  the  "  Canterbury  Tales,"  at  the  close  of  the 
age  of  chivalry.'  The  reason  why  this  modern  concep- 
tion of  social  character  insists  so  strongly  upon  certain 
virtues,  and  omits  entirely  all  consideration  of  certain 
others,  equally  or  even  more  essential  to  a  really  high 
character,  is  to  be  found  in  the  peculiar  conditions  of 
the  age  of  chivalry,  its  ethical  limitations  and  its  class 
relations. 

It  Avas,  as  far  as  it  went,  a  Christian  ideal  of  life  and 
mfl,nners — truth,  loyalty,  uniform  and  unbroken  courtesy, 
bravery,  devotion  to  the  service  of  the  weak,  especially  of 
one's  own  class,  the  sacrifice  of  self  to  others  in  certain 
cases,  the  seeking  of  the  place  of  danger  when  one  is 
responsible  for  others — and  such  an  ideal  would  certainly 
have  come  into  civilization  in  some  way.  Historical!}^ 
it  was  through  chivalry, that  it  became  a  social  law.  In 
making  up  a  full  account,  however,  the  other  fact  must 
be  included,  that  the  universal  prevalence  of  the  chival- 
ric  standard  may  have  made  the  proper  emphasis  of 
other  virtues,  which  it  omitted,  more  difficult  than  it 
would  otherwise  have  been." 

'  Lines  68-73. 

''The  reader  of  Froissart's  ChroriicM,  or  of  Malory's  Kinrj  Arthur, 
needs  no  citation  of  special  cases  to  convince  him  of  the  coarseness  and 
barbarism  which  still  remained  under  tlie  superficial  polish  of  the  age 
of  chivalry,  or  of  its  entire  disregard  of  some  virtues. 


378  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

We  have  reached  with  the  crusades,  then,  the  turning- 
point  of  the  middle  ages.  From  this  time  on,  history 
grows  more  diversified,  and  we  cannot,  as  heretofore,  fol- 
low a  single  line  of  development  and  include  within  it 
the  Avhole  field.  Three  or  four  great  lines  of  progress 
run  through  the  closing  half  of  medieval  history,  lines 
which  are  easily  distinguished  from  one  another  and 
which  are  important  enough  for  separate  treatment. 
They  will  be  taken  uj)-  in  the  following  order,  which  is 
roughly  the  natural  relation  of  their  dependence  one 
upon  another.  First,  the  commercial  development ;  sec- 
ond, the  formation  of  the  modern  nations  ;  third,  the  re- 
vival of  learning ;  fourth,  the  changes  in  the  ecclesias- 
tical world;  and  finally,  the  Keformatiou,  the  age  of 
transition  to  modern  history. 

"While  we  separate  these  lines  from  one  another  for  con- 
venience of  study,  it  must  be  carefully  remembered  that 
they  are  constantly  related  to  one  another,  that  they  in- 
fluence one  another  at  every  step  of  the  progress,  and 
that  perhaps  a  new  advance  in  some  one  of  them  is  more 
frequently  dependent  upon  an  advance  in  another  line 
than  upon  one  in  its  own.  The  attempt  will  be  made  to 
make  this  interdependence  of  the  various  lines  of  activity 
as  evident  as  possible,  but  it  should  never  be  lost  sight 
of  by  the  reader. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE   GROWTp   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS 

If  there  is  one  line  of  advance  in  civilization  which  is 
a  necessary  condition  of  progress  in  all  other  directions 
it  would  seem  to  be  economic  advance.  It  is  no  doubt 
true  that  more  than  once  in  history,  under  peculiar 
circumstances,  times  which  appear  to  be  those  of  re- 
markable economic  advancement  have  brought  with  them 
dangers  which  seemed  to  threaten  the  very  existence  of 
civilization  itself,  as  in  the  last  days  of  the  Roman  re- 
public. It  is  also  true  that  sometimes  economic  improve- 
ment has  been  made  possible  only  by  advance  in  other 
lines,  like  the  establishment  of  a  better  government,  for 
instance,  as  in  Italy  during  the  reign  of  Theodoric  the 
Ostrogoth. 

The  truth  is,  the  various  lines  of  progress  are  so  inter- 
woven, as  has  already  been  said,  advance  in  any  is  so  de- 
pendent on  advance  in  all,  that  it  is  not  possible  to  say 
that,  any  one  of  them,  either  in  theory  or  in  fact,  is  a 
necessary  condition  of  the  others.  But  this  much  i^ 
tnie,  that  a  country  which  is  falling  into  economic  decay 
is  declining  in  other  things  as  well,  and  that  no  general 
and  permanent  progress  of  civilization  is  possible  unless 
it  is  based — the  word  seems  hardly  too  strong  to  use  even 
if  it  is  a  begging  of  the  question — on  economic  improve- 
ment. 

This  was  emphatically  true  of  the  period  of  medieval 


280  MKDIKVAL   CIVILIZATION 

liistorj  which  extends  from  the  crusades  to  the  Keforma- 
tion.  I  hope  to  make  evident,  in  the  portion  of  this 
book  which  follows,  how  completely  the  various  lines  of 
growth  which  began  an  increasing  activity  from  the  cru- 
sades, and  which  led  out  from  the  middle  ages  into  mod- 
ern history,  were  dependent  for  their  accelerated  motion, 
for  immense  reinforcement,  if  not  for  actual  beginning, 
ui)on  the  rapidly  develoj)ing  commercial  activities  of  the 
time.  I  Bad  roads  and  no  bridges ;  the  robber  baron  or 
band  of" outlaws  to  be  expected  in  every  favorable  spot; 
legalized  feudal  exactions  at  the  borders  of  every  little 
fief;  no  generally  prevailing  system  of  law  uniform 
throughout  the  country  and  really  enforced;  a  scanty 
and  uncertain  currency,  making  contracts  diifificult  and 
payment  in  kind  aud  in  services  almost  universal;  inter- 
ests and  desires  narrowed  down  to  the  mere  neighbor- 
hood; these  were  the  conditions  of  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  centuries.  A  siiccessful  commerce  meant  neces- 
sarily a  ceaseless  war  upon  all  these  things,  and  the  in- 
troduction of  better  conditions  in  these  respects  was,  al- 
most in  itself,  the  transformation  of  the  medieval  into 
the  modern. 

The  German  invasions  ha,d  broken  up  the  organization 
of  Roman  commerce  and  destroyed  large  amounts  of 
capital.  They  had  diminished  the  currency  in  circula- 
tion, lowered  the  condition  of  the  Roman  artisan  class 
and  broken  up  their  organizations,  impaired  the  means 
of  intercommunication,  and  brought  in  as  the  ruling  race 
in  every  province  a  people  on  a  much  lower  plane  of 
economic  development,  with  fewer  w^ants,  hardly  above 
the  stage  of  barter,  and  entirely  unused  to  the  compli- 
cated machinery  of  general  commerce.  Such  a  change 
was  a  severe  blow  to  commerce.  Large  parts  of  the 
em])iro  fell  back  into  a  more  primitive  condition,  Avhere 
ihe  domain  supplied  almost  all  its  own  wants,  very  few 


THE   GROVVTH   OF    COMMERCE   AND    ITS    RESULTS      281 

things  being  bouglit  from  without  and  very  few  l^eiug 
sold. 

But  the  invasions  did  not  entirely  destroy  commerce. 
Even  in  the  worst  times  there  can  be  found  many 
traces  of  what  may  be  called  inter-state  exchanges,  of 
commerce  between  the  East  and  the  West,  or  between 
the  North  and  the  South.  The  church  needed,  for  its 
ornaments  and  vestments  and  in  its  services,  cloths  and 
spices  and  other  articles  which  could  not  be  obtained 
in  the  West.  Nobles  made  use  of  numerous  articles  of 
luxury  and  display  in  a  life  that  was,  on  the  whole,  hard 
and  comfortless.  Where  wealth  existed  there  was  a 
tendency  to  invest  it  in  articles  which  would  store  great 
value  in  small  space,  and  which  could  be  quicklj'  turned 
into  money,  or  exchanged.  The  demand,  consequently, 
for  the  articles  which  commerce  would  supply,  though 
it  was  limited,  was  strong,  and  of  a  sort  which  insured 
a  great  profit. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  importation  of  the 
goods  needed  was  certain  to  exist.  Indeed  commerce 
never  died  out.  Every  period  of  good  government  in 
any  o^  the  new  German  states,  as  under  Theodoric,  even 
if  it  lasted  but  for  a  moment,  saw  a  revival  of  it.  Jus- 
tinian's conquests  in  Italy  created  a  natural  line  of  con- 
nection between  the  East  and  the  West  which  continued 
unbroken  until  the  crusades.  Even  before  his  invasion, 
the  Venetians  had  the  reputation  of  making  long  voy- 
ages, and  notwithstanding  the  troublous  times  which 
f(jllowed,  their  commerce  was  firmly  established  by  the 
eighth  centur}'.  Before  the  eleventh,  nearly  all  the  east- 
ern goods  which  found  their  waj'  into  the  West  came 
through  Italy,  where  Venice  and  Amalfi  were  the  U\o 
chief  ports.  Occasionally  something  reached  southern 
Gaul  and  eastern  Spain  directly,  but  the  overland  route 
through   the  Danube  valley  seems  to   have   been  used 


282  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

only  for  a  brief  interval  or  two.  In  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury commerce  appears  to  have  developed  rapidly  for 
the  time.  The  conditions  which  rendered  the  crusades 
possible,  that  is,  the  beginnings  of  something  like  a  real 
community  life  in  Europe,  showed  themselves  also,  and 
earlier  than  anywhere  else,  in  an  increasing  commerce, 
and  new  cities  came  up  to  take  part  in  it.  Pisa  and 
Genoa  were  able  to  conquer  privileges  from  the  Moham- 
medan states  of  northern  Africa.  Marseilles  was  in  a 
position  to  obtain  extensive  favors  from  the  first  cru- 
saders. Inland  cities,  also,  had  begun  to  have  extended 
relations,  as  distributing  points  for  the  goods  which 
reached  them  overland  from  Italy,  and  a  sea  commerce 
of  some  importance  had  begun  in  the  North. 

The  crusades,  then,  did  not  originate  commerce,  but 
they  imparted  to  it  a  new  and  poAverful  imj^ulse.  They 
created  at  once  a  strong  demand  for  increased  means 
of  transportation.  The  first  crusade  went  overland,  but 
the  later  ones  wholly  or  partly  by  water.  The  occupa- 
tion of  the  Holy  Land  by  the  Christians  made  necessary 
a  more  lively  and  frequent  intercourse  between  East 
and  West.  The  crusader  states  were  able  to  maintain 
themselves  only  by  constant  new  arrivals  of  men  and 
supplies.  The  West  was  made  acquainted  with  new  ar- 
ticles of  use  or  luxury,  and  desires  and  needs  rapidly 
increased.  Connections  were  formed  vnih.  new  peoples, 
as  with  the  Monguls.  New  commercial  routes  were 
opened  up,  geographical  knowledge  increased,  and  new 
regions  appeared  in  the  maps. 

The  change  in  the  general  atmosphere  of  Europe 
which  accompanied  the  crusades,  the  broadening  of 
mind  and  the  growth  of  common  interests,  favored  in- 
creased intercommunication  and  exchange,  and,  from  the 
first  crusade  on,  commerce  increased  with  great  rapid- 
ity, penetrated  constantly  into  new  regions,   aided  the 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS    RESULTS      283 

growth  of  mamifacturing  industries,  multiplied  the  arti- 
cles with  which  it  dealt,  improved  greatly  its  own  ma- 
chinery— the  art  of  navigation,  currency,  forms  of  credit, 
maritime  law,  and  mercantile  organization — and  exer- 
ted a  profound  influence  upon  every  department  of  hu- 
man activity. 

The  regions  embraced  within  the  world  commerce  of 
the  middle  ages  may  be  divided  for  convenience  of  ex- 
amination into  three  divisions — the  East,  the  North,  and 
the  states,  chiefly  Mediterranean,  which  acted  as  middle- 
men between  these  two  extremes. 

The  goal  at  the  East  was  India,  though  there  was  for 
a  time  some  direct  overland  connection  with  China 
starting  from  the  Black  Sea.  From  the  East  came  the 
articles  of  luxury  and  show,  which  formed  the  bulk  of 
medieval  commerce,  and  returned  enormous  profits — 
spices,  incense,  perfumes,  precious  stones,  carpets,  hang- 
ings, and  rich  cloths.  The  Christian  merchants  of  Eu- 
rope could  not  purchase  these  direct  from  India,  but 
only  from  the  Mohammedan  states  of  western  Asia, 
which  maintained  relations  with  the  farther  East.  These 
could  sell  to  India  but  few  goods  in  exchange — horses, 
linen,  and  manufactured  metals,  especially  weapons— 
and  large  quantities  of  the  precious  metals  had  to  be  ex- 
ported to  settle  the'  balance.  These  goods  reached  the 
West  by  a  variety  of  routes,  some  coming  through  the 
Black  Sea,  where  Trebizond  was  an  important  port; 
others  coming  up  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  Euphrates, 
and  reaching  Mediterranean  ports  like  Antioch  or  Bey- 
root  ;  others  by  the  more  southern  route,  through  the 
Red  Sea  and  Egypt.  The  frequency  of  the  use  and  the 
profitableness  of  any  one  of  these  routes  depended  iTpon 
the  political  condition  of  the  intermediary  Mohamme- 
dan states,  and  varied  greatly  at  different  times.     With 


284  MEDIKVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  advance  o^the  Turks  the  more  northern  lines  were 
gradually  rendered  impossible,  and  this  was  one  of  the 
chief  causes  which  led  to  the  rapid  decline  of  the  com- 
merce of  Genoa  in  the  fifteenth  centm-y,  her  dex^endence 
being  chiefly  lipon  the  Black  Sea  routes.  On  the  eve 
of  the  great  discoveries  of  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury almost  the  only  secure  and  profitable  connection 
with  India  was  through  Egypt. 

The  Mohammedan  stated  took  of  the  western  mer- 
chants a  much  greater  variety  of  goods  than  India 
— food  supplies,  grain,  oil,  and  honey,  metals  and  min- 
erals, lead,  iron,  steel,  tin,  sulphur,  cloth  in  great 
variety,  leather,  •  wool,  soap,  furs,  and  slaves  —  Circas- 
sians being  conveyed,  for  instance,  from  the  Black  Sea 
to  Egypt,  and  even  Europeans  being  sold  without  much 
hesitation  by  their  Christian  brethren  when  opportunity 
offered.  The  ships  of  the  West,  loaded  -svith  the  east- 
em  goods  which  they  had  purchased,  made  the  return 
vo3^age,  beset  with  dangers  from  pirate  attacks  and  un- 
skilful na\igation,  and  at  home,  at  Venice  or  Genoa, 
the  goods  were  unloaded  and  stored  for  further  ex- 
change. 

From  the  Mediterranean  ports  overland  routes  led  up 
into  the  country  to  important  points  of  interior  trade. 
In  France  and  Germany  commerce  centred  about  the 
fairs,  which  were  held  at  fixed  seasons.  In  the  great  fairs 
wholesale  trade  was  carried  on,  the  merchants  from  the 
smaller  places  meeting  there  the  importers  who  had  the 
goods  of  the  East,  and  so  obtaining  their  supplies.  In 
the  fairs  of  the  smaller  places  retail  trading  was  done,' 
but  a  very  large  part  of  the  retail  trade  of  the  interior 
Avas  carried  on  by  pedlers,  who  went  about  from  village 

'  The  markets  at  present  held  at  brief  intervals  in  the  Congo  state 
exhibit  many  of  the  characteristic  features  of  the  medieval  markets  or 
small  faira. 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS    RESULTS      285 

to  village,  carrying  packs  themselves  or  spmetimes  ^ntli 
horses.' 

After  a  time  the  shijDS  of  the  Mediterranean  ventured 
into  the  Atlantic,  and  direct  connection  by ,  water  Avas 
established  with  the  North.  Venice  sent  regularly  each 
year  a  fleet  to  touch  at  ports  in  England  and  the  Nether- 
lands, and  the  latter  country  became  finally  the  centre  of 
nearly  all  exchanges  between  the  North  and  the  South, 
so  that  it  should  fairly  be  reckoned  as  belonging  in  the 
middle  region  rather  than  in  the  northern.  Bruges  was 
the  chief  place  for  this  traffic,  and  it  came  to  be  filled 
with  the  warehouses  of  the  different  nations  wdiere  their 
goods  w^ere  stored  for  exchange. 

The  North  was  the  great  source  of  food  supplies  and  of 
raw  materials  for  the  increasing  manufactures  of  the  mid- 
dle region — grain,  wool,  hides,  tallowy  salt  meat  and  fish, 
flax,  hemp,  timber,  furs,  and  tin  and  other  metals.  The 
North  developed,  from  the  thirteenth  century  on,  a  very 
extensive  and  diversified  commerce  of  its  own,  with  a  more 
compact  organization  through  the  Hanseatic  League  than 
Italian  commerce  had,  and  reaching  into  Russia  and  by 
degrees  becoming  bold  enough  to  send  its  ships  into  the 
Mediterranean.  Before  the  end  of  the  middle  ai-es  there 
w^as  also  considerable  manufacturing  in  some  countries 
of  the  North. 

Notwithstanding  the  great  development  of  commerce 
and  manufactures,  and  the  multiplication  of  articles  of 
use  and  luxury  which  followed,  the  lives  of  most  men 
still  continued  to  possess  few  comforts,  to  the  end  of  the 
middle  ages.  From  the  first  century  of  the  crusades 
many  articles  which  we  now  consider  among  the  neces- 

'  Cutts,  Scenes  and  Characters  of  tlie  Middle  Af/es.  p.  515,  givps  the 
contents  of  a  foot  pedler"s  pack  from  the  illnstrations  of  a  manuscript. 
It  contained  gloves,  belts,  hoods,  a  hat,  mirrors,  a  dagger,  a  purse,  a  pair 
of  slippers,  hose,  a  musical  pipe,  etc. 


286  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

sities  of  life,  cliimneys,  windows  of  glass,  bedroom  and 
table  furniture,  carpets,  clocks,  artificial  lights,  and  other 
things  of  the  sort  began  to  make  their  appearance  in 
the  houses  of  the  rich,  commonly  first  in  the  cities,  and 
were  slowly  adopted  by  the  country  nobles.  The  poorer 
people  of  the  country  remained  in  general  without  them, 
and  with  their  insufficient  diet,  consisting  chiefly  of  pork 
or  salt  meats,  and  the  coarse  grains,  with  very  few  vege- 
tables, and  their  uncleanliness  of  person  and  of  surround- 
ings, it  is  not  strange  that  frequent  plagues  carried  off 
large  numbers  of  them. 

By  the  fifteenth  century  commerce  had  lost  much  'of ' 
its  earlier  simplicity.  It  had  become  greatly  diversified, 
and  had .  taken  on  many  of  its  more  modern  features. 
With  this  transformation  of  its  character  some  of  the 
probligms  of  international  exchange  began  to  arise  before 
the  mind  of  the  time,  now  capable  of  taking  wider  views 
than  once,  and  men  began  to  grope,  at  least  in  a  half- 
conscious  way,  for  the  solution  of  questions  which  we  do 
not  seem  to  have  settled  to  our  entire  satisfaction  even 
yet — the  relation  of  the  supply  of  gold  and  silver  to  the 
national  wealth,  and  the  theory  that  national  wealth  may 
be  increased  and  commerce  developed  by  legislative  re- 
strictions of  one  sort  or  another  upon  the  commerce  of 
other  people.' 

It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  the  theories  of  interna- 
tional trade,  which  began  to  take  shape  at  this  time,  were 
permanent  contributions  to  civilization,  but  certainly  they 
have  profoundly  affected  its  course  ever  since.     Our  own 

'  The  legislation  of  a  distinctly  protective  character,  of  which  ours  is 
the  direct  descendant,  began  in  the  fourteenth  century,  though  there 
are  unconnected  cases  of  the  same  sort  of  legislation  much  earlier.  The 
theories  upon  which  the  mercantile  system  was  based  began  to  be  put 
into  definite  shape  in  the  sixteenth  century.  See  Lalor's  translation  of 
Roscher's  Political  Economy,  Vol.  II.,  App.  II.  and  III.,  especially  pp. 
441  ff. 


THE   GKOWTH    OF   COMMEKCE    AND   ITS   RESULTS      287 

ceutury  lias  been  not  more  intensely  interested  in  any 
subject  than  in  the  question  whether  legislation  should 
continue  to  be  controlled  by  them  or  not.  These  theories 
were  formed  at  a  time  when  the  facts  upon  which  they 
were  supposed  to  be  based  were  very  imperfectly  under- 
stood. Experience  in  general  commerce  was  only  just 
beginning,  and  any  real  knowledge  of  the  laws  which 
operate  in  it,  or  even  of  its  primary  facts,  was  entirely 
impossible.  They  were  pure  theories,  almost  as  com- 
pletely so  as  the  speculations  of  any  closet  philosopher 
who  ever  lived.  Probably  there  is  not  to  be  found  in 
any  other  department  of  civilization  an  attempt  to  carry 
out  pure  theories  in  practice  on  siich  a  scale  as  this.  But 
these  ideas  had  an  apparent  and  temporary  basis  of  fact 
in  the  existence  of  a  i5arroW  but  extremely  profitable 
trade,  so  situated  that  it  could  be-artificially  controlled — 
one,  in  other  words,  which  could  be  made  to  operate  for 
a  time  like  the  exclusive  possession  of  a  gold  mine — and 
there  was  no  experience  at  hand  to  show  that  this  condi- 
tion of  things  was  temporary  and  exceptional.  These 
theories  had  further  an  extremely  plausible  foundation 
in  the  apparent  self-interest  of  the  moment,  and  they 
obtained  a  hold  upon  the  popular  mind  which  the  better 
informed  have  found  it  extremely  hard  to  loosen.' 

For  our  purpose  these  forming  theories  are  far  less 
important  in  themselves  than  as  signs  of  the  wider  views 
and  more  comprehensive  grasp  of  mind  which  they  cer- 
tainly indicate  and  which  was  now  possible,  made  possible 
in  large  part  by  the  extension  of  commerce  itself. 

'  Tlie  difficulty  in  tlie  case  is  hardly  more,  however,  than  that  which 
every  science  finds  in  getting  its  own  carefully  formed  inductions  ac- 
cepted in  the  place  of  the  pure  theories  with  which  the  popular  mind 
explains  all  partially  understood  facts.  That  the  theories  in  this  case 
are  apparently  closely  bound  up  with  selfish  interests  makes  the  process 
a  more  exciting  one,  and  gives  the  adversary,  perhaps,  an  unusual  ad- 
vantage, but  it  cannot  make  the  result  diit'erent  in  the  end. 


288  MEDIEVAL    riVILTZATIOX 

This  fact  is  shown  still  more  clearly  in  the  idea  which 
daAvnccl  upon  the  minds  of  many  men  in  the  fifteenth 
century  of  far  wider  possibilities  for  commerce  than  any 
which  lay  along  the  old  lines — the  first  faint  traces  -of 
the  idea  of  a  world  commerce,  and  even  of  a  conception 
of  the  world  itself  in  anything  like  its  actual  reality.  It 
was  only  the  first  beginning  of  these  ideas,  but  they 
were  held  strongly  enough  for  men  to  take  the  risk  of 
acting  upon  them,  and  the  discoveries  of  the  last  years 
of  the  century  followed,  which  not  merely  opened  new 
worlds  to  commerce  but  broadened  immensely  all  hori- 
zons. 

"The  impulse  to  exploration  and  the  daring  spirit  and 
pluck  of  the  explorer  had  come  with  the  first  expansion  of 
commerce,  and  as  early  as  the  thirteenth  century  the  then 
"  dark  continent "  of  Asia  had  been  traversed  by  man^\' 
Europeans.  The  immediately  active  cause,  however,  of 
the  oceanic  discoveries  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  the 
coming  up  of  new  nations  eager  to  take  part  in  the  ex- 
tremely profitable  commerce  in  eastern  goods,  at  the 
moment  when  the  Turkish  conquests  in  the  northern 
and  eastern  parts  of  the  Mediterranean  were  narrow- 
ing down  the  possibilities  of  that  commerce  as  it  had 
existed,  and  the  footing  of  the  Venetians  in  Egypt  made 
competition  with  them  very  difficult.  The  Portuguese 
were  the  first  of  these  new  nations  to  cherish  this  com- 
mercial ambition,  and  they  turned  Iheir  attention  to  find- 
ing a  way  to  India  around  Africa.  In  the  first  half  of 
the  fifteenth  century  Prince  Henry  of  Portugal  nobly 
devoted  his  life  to  the  encouragement  of  these  explora- 
tions, because,  as  he  thought,  they  fell  naturally  within 
the  duty  of  princes,  since  they  afforded  no  good  hope  of 
profit  to  tempt  the  merchant. 

It  required  no  little  daring  to  sail  into  unknoAA-n  seas 
in  an  age  when  men  fully  expected  that  they  might  meet 


THE   GROWTH    OF   COMMERCE   AXD   ITS    RESULTS      289 

with  the  adventures  of  Sindbad  the  Sailor,  and  worse 
things  also,  and  progress  was  necessarily  slow.  One  ex- 
pedition advanced  along  the  coast  as  far  as  it  dared,  and 
when  it  retui'ned  in  safety  the  next  one  ventured  a  little 
farther.  In  1434  they  passed  Cape  Bojador ;  in  1441, 
Cape  Branco ;  .  in  1445,  Cape  Yerde ;  in  1462,  Cape 
Sierra  Leon  ;  in  1471  they  reached  the  gold  coast ;  the 
equator  was  crossed  in  1484,  or  possiblj  a  little  earlier  ; 
in  1486  Bartholomew  Diaz  turned  the  Southern  Cape, 
henceforth  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  ;  and  finally,  in 
1498,  Yasco  da  Gama  reached  India.  This  first  success 
the  king  of  Portugal  immediately  followed  up  b}'  send- 
ing fleets  especially  fitted  out  for  trading,  and  though 
they  were  bitterly  opposed  in  India  by  the  Ai'abs  of 
Egypt,  whose  monopoly  was  threatened,  they  retm-ned 
wdth  loads  of  spices. 

The  revolution  wrought  by  the  opening  of  this  new 
route  was  tremendous.  Yenice,  though  in  a  favored  po- 
sition, had  been  compelled  to  buy  her  goods  in  Egypt  at 
a  great  disadvantage,  as  the  Arabs  had  a  practical  mo- 
nopoly. Heavy  tolls  and  dues  were  added  to  the  orig- 
inal cost,  and  the  Portuguese  were  able  to  buy  in  India 
several  times  cheaper  than  the  Yenetiaus  in  Egypt. 
Yenice  was  thrown  into  a  panic.  Contemporary  evi- 
dence is  said  to  show  that  when  the  news  first  came 
that  spices  .had  reached  Portugal  direct  from  India, 
the  price  of  such  goods  fell  more  than  fifty  per  cent, 
in  Yenice.' 

'  The  trade  continued,  however,  extremely  profitable.  The  Portu- 
guese are  said  to  have  sold  their  spices  at  the  time  of  their  supremacy 
at  a  profit  of  at  least  six  hundred  per  cent.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century  the  profits  of  a  successful  voyage  often  reached 
two  hundred  per  cent.  Theise  high  profits,  however,  had  to  make  good 
many  losses.  The  average  annual  dividend,  declared  by  the  Dutch 
East  India  Company,  from  1605  to  1720,  was  22|  per  cent,  ou  a  capital 
stock  partly  ''  water.'' 
19 


290  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

For  tlie  Venetians  it  was  certainly  a  question  of  life 
and  death.  Their  whole  commercial  existence  depend- 
ed upon  the  result.  They  urged  the  Arabs  of  Egyjjt 
most  earnestly  to  oppose  the  Portuguese  in  India  in 
every  way  possible  ;  they  discussed  for  a  moment  the 
opening  of  a  Suez  canal,  and  even  the  project  of  securing 
an  overland  route  around  the  Turkish  dominions  in  al- 
liance with  the  Russians.  But  it  was  all  in  vain.  The 
world's  commerce  had  outgrown  the  Mediterranean. 
Six  years  before  Vasco  da  Gama's  success  Columbus  had 
reached  America,  and  the  world  passed  at  once  out  of 
the  middle  ages. 

Commerce  had  hardly  more  than  begun  its  new  activ- 
ity before  its  influence  began  to  be  felt  far  outside  its 
own  proper  field.  It  is  entirely  impossible  to  indicate, 
in  anything  approaching  a  chronological  order,  the  vari- 
ous ways  in  which  this  influence  was  directly  exerted. 
Even  an  attempt  to  state  them  in  something  like  a  logi- 
cal system  can  be  of  value  only  as  serving  to  indicate  for 
examination  the  points  of  contact  between  this  increas- 
ing commerce  and  other  lines  of  advance  during  the 
same  time. 

With  the  growth  of  commerce  cities  began  to  arise. 
Italy  and  Gaul  had  had  numerous  great  cities  in  Roman 
times,  and  most  of  these  continued  after  the  invasion  un- 
destroyed,  but.  with  their  relative  importance  diminished, 
and  in  many  cases  certainly  with  their  institutions 
changed.  Roman  Germany  had  had  a  few  cities,  and  of 
these  at  least  Cologne  retained  a  noticeable  civic  and 
commercial  life  through  the  period  before  the  crusades. 
The  interior  and  north  of  Germany  had  had  no  cities  in 
the  Roman  times,  and  only  slight  beginnings  of  them  be- 
fore the  elcA'Cnth  century. 

With  the  revival  of  commerce  these  old  cities  wakened 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COM.MEKCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      291 

to  a  new  activit}'  and  grew  rapidly  in  size  and  wealtli.' 
New  cities  sprang  up  where  none  had  existed  before,  per- 
haps about  a  fortified  post  or  near  a  monastery  where  a 
local  market  or  fair  began  to  be  held.  The  privileges 
granted  to  the  market  attracted  merchants  to  settle  there 
and  gradually  widened  into  considerable  rights  of  self- 
government  and  a  local  law,  and,  often  at  least,  as  the 
city  formed  about  the  market  and  was  enabled  by  cir- 
cumstances to  take  its  place  as  an  independent  member 
of  the  national  community,  the  original  market  rights 
gradually  developed  into  the  city  constitution. 

The  natural  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  city  to  strive 
for  local  independence  and  self-government  was  greatly- 
aided  by  the  fact  that  at  the  time  when  the  movement 
began  the  feudal  system  was  at  its  height  as  the  prevail- 
ing form  of  political  organization  throughout  Europe. 
It  was  itself  the  realization,  as  far  as  possible,  of  the 
idea  of  local  independence,  and  though  the  feudal  lord 
on  whose  territory  the  city  had  grown  up  might  struggle 
to  maintain  his  control  over  it,  the  logic  of  the  whole 
situation  was  on  the  side  of  the  city.  The  example 
which  the  lord  had  set  in  his  effort  to  escape  from  his 
dependence  upon  his  suzerain  was  a  very  plain  one  to 

'  The  lonsr-dispnted  question  as  to  the  continuance  of  Roman  muni- 
cipal institutions  across  the  dark  ages  is  one  whicli  concerns  the  special 
institutional  history  of  municipal  government  rather  than  the  history  of 
the  rise  of  cities  in  general.  The  causes  of  the  general  movement  are 
those  indicated  above,  whatever  may  be  true  as  to  the  origin  of  special 
features  in  the  municipal  constitution.  It  seems  pretty  clearly  proved 
that  in  Germany  the  great  majority  of  the  cities  reached  their  rights 
of  self-government  by  a  gradual  enlargement  of  the  market  privileges 
which  were  granted  them  at  the  beginning  of  their  history.  This  fact 
does  not  preclude,  however,  the  influence  of  Roman  institutions  else- 
where, and  it  is  highly  probable  that  such  an  influence  was  felt  in  in- 
dividual cases  at  least.  While  the  general  causes  and  general  features  of 
the  moment  are  simihir  in  all  tin;  .states,  it  would  be  absurd  to  assume 
a  uniformity  in  details  which  exists  nowhere  else  in  the  middle  ages. 


292  MEDIEVAL    CIVILIZATIOK 

follow,  and  the  feudal  system  furnished  forms  of  easy 
application  which  secured  a  practical  independence.' 

This  was  especially  true  of  France,  and  though  the 
cities  of  Italy  exhibit  more  fully  some  other  results  of 
the  movement  which  are  extremely  important  in  the  his- 
tory of  ci^dlization,  the  French  cities  reveal  more  clearly 
than  those  of  any  other  country  the  political  tendencies 
which  the  rise  of  the  cities  everywhere  favored  in  the 
general  government  of  the  state,  but  which  were  more 
completely  realized  in  the  kingdom  of  France  than  in 
any  other  of  the  large  states  of  Europe. 

In  France,  though  opposed  in  spirit  to  the  feudal  sys- 
tem, the  movement  follows  distinctly  feudal  forms,  and 
the  tendency  is  always  toward  the  formation  of  "  com- 
munes." By  no  means  all  the  cities  of  France  succeeded 
in  reaching  this  result,  and  in  organizing  actual  com- 
munes, probably  only  a  small  proportion  of  them  did, 
but  the  tendency  is  in  that  direction,  and  those  that 
failed  stopped  at  some  intermediate  point  in  the  process. 

The  commune  is,  strictly  speaking,  a  corporation  re- 
garded as  a  feudal  person,  and,  as  such,  having  the  obli- 
gations and  the  rights  of  a  vassal  in  respect  to  its  lord 
and  able  to  become  a  suzerain  in  its  turn.  The  act  of 
forming  a  commune  within  the  limits  of  a  feudal  terri- 
tory was  an  act  of  subinfeudation — the  formation  of  a 
subfief  where  none  had  existed  before.  By  this  act  a 
gi'oup  of  persons,  brought  together  in  ordinary  cases 
from  a  great  variety  of  sources,  some  of  them  were  full 
freemen  of  the  country  or  neighborhood,  some  were  for- 
eigners to  the  country  or  to  the  fief  who  had  settled  in 
the  place  for  pm-poses  of  trade,  and  so  were  subject  to 

'  An  interesting  case  is  the  little  republic  of  Andorra,  where  feudal 
forms  allowed  the  establishment  of  a  local  independence  which  has 
been  preserved  into  our  own  times.  See  the  article  by  Professor  Ber- 
nard Moses,  in  the  Yale  Reekie,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  28-53. 


THE   GROWTH    OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS    RESULTS      293 

various  feudal  dues  to  tlie  lord,  some  of  tliem  were  sei-fs 
of  var3ing  degi'ees  of  right  vnth  respect  to  the  lord, 
aud  therefore  subject  to  special  exactions  for  his  benefit 
— this  group  of  persons  was  transformed  into  a  single 
person  and  raised  to  the  position  of  a  vassal,  subject  no 
longer  to  the  varying  and  indefinite  rights  of  the  lord 
over  serf  and  foreigner  as  individuals,  but  only  to  the 
limited  obligations  sj^ecified  in  the  contract  of  the  fief 
between  the  lord  and  the  commune.  This  contract  was 
under  the  ordinary  feudal  sanctions.  The  ofiicers  of  the 
commune  paid  homage  and  swore  the  vassal's  oath  to  the 
lord,  and  he,  in  turn,  swore  to  observe  his  obligations 
toward  them. 

The  special  obligations  which  the  commune  entered 
into  toward  the  lord  differed  in  different  cases  like  those 
of  other  vassals,  but  within  the  limits  established  by 
these  obligations  in  the  given  case  the  commune  ob- 
tained the  right  to  regulate  its  ovm.  affairs  as  every  vas- 
sal did.  This  meant,  of  course,  for  the  citv  the  richt  of 
local  self-government,  though  the  growth  of  the  general 
government  in  France  did  not  allow  the  result  which  Avas 
reached  in  Italy  and  Germany,  the  establishment  of  a 
virtually  independent  city  state. 

Besides  the  commune  proper,  there  was  in  France  a 
multitude  of  cities  and  towns  which  never  became  full 
communes,  but  which  obtained  by  definite  contracts 
more  or  less  extensive  rights  of  self-government  and  of 
freedom  from  exactions.  These  were  the  viUes  de  hour- 
(/I'oisie,  or  chartered  to\\Tis.  The  number  of  these  towns 
was  much  greater  than  that  of  the  real  communes,  and 
their  influence  on  the  general  results  which  followed  from 
this  movement  was  precisely  the  same.  The  diffcn-ence 
was  not  one  of  principle  or  of  character,  but  one  which 
concerned  the  completeness  of  the  local  rights  secured. 

It  is  easy  from  what  has  been  said  to  understand  the 


294  MEDIEVAL  civilizatio:n' 

attitude  of  the  local  nobility  toward  tlie  commune.  To 
grant  the  right  to  form  such  an  organization  was  to  cut 
oflf  so  much  of  his  fief  from  his  own  immediate  control. 
It  was  to  diminish  his  rights  of  exaction  and  to  reduce  his 
power.  Opposition  was  natural.  In  very  many  cases 
the  commune  succeeded  in  establishing  itself  only  ^fter 
a  long  and  bitter  conflict,  and  as  the  result  of  a  victory 
which  forced  the  lord  to  yield. 

This  was  particularly  true  of  the  attitude  of  the  eccle- 
siastical nobles  toward  the  town.  The  seat  of  etery 
bishop  was  in  an  important  city.  The  larger  abbeys  also 
were,  as  a  rule,  in  the  towns,  and  so  it  happened  that  the 
towns  which  began  to  strive  for  local  independence  were 
more  likely  to  be  in  ecclesiastical  than  in  lay  fiefs.  The 
larger  portion  of  the  long-continued  and  desperate  strug- 
gle between  the  rising  cities  and  the  older  power  was  in 
fiefs  held  by  the  church. 

Among  the  lay  nobility  it  was  more  likely  to  be  the 
small  noble,  the  lord  of  the  locality,  who  opposed  the 
city  than  the  great  lord  whose  domain  included  a  prov- 
ince. The  small  noble  saw  the  towTi  growing  up  in  his 
little  territory,  j^erhaps  out  of  nothing  or  next  to  nothing, 
and  menacing  his  dominion  with  a  serious  danger,  pos- 
sibly even  threatening  to  annex  it  entirely,  and  to  crowd 
him  to  the  wall.  The  inferior  nobihty  were  in  many 
cases  contending  for  existence,  and  sometimes  in  France, 
as  happened  so  generally  in  Italy,  they  were  absorbed 
into  the  town ;  in  some  cases  they  seem  to  have  gone  into 
the  commune  voluntarily  and  with  good-will. 

The  gi'eat  nobles  whose  territories  were  principalities 
followed  no  common  policy.  If  the  count  or  the  duke 
was  strong,  and  his  goveiTiment  a  really  centralized  one, 
as  was  the  case  in  some  instances,  he  seems  to  have  fa- 
vored the  gi'o-rtiih  of  the  towns  with  chartel'ed  rights  but 
not  of  communes,  keeping  the  real  control  in  his  own 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE    ATSTD   ITS   RESULTS      29.1 

hands.  If  his  power  was  weak  and  divided,  usurped 
by  vassals  whom  he  could  not  hold  to  obedience,  he  fa- 
vored the  development  even  of  the  commune  as  a  means 
of  weakening  them.  In  some  cases,  also,  the  great  lords 
seem  as  bitterly  opposed  to  the  cities  as  the  great  ojSicers 
of  the  church. 

The  wavering  policy  of  the  French  kings  toward  the 
movement,  which  is  not  in  reality  so  inconsistent  as  it 
I  appears  at  first,  is  to  be  explained  in  the  same  way  by 
their  relation  to  their  vassals.  The  early  Capetians  no 
doubt  perceived  the  advantage  which  the  independence 
of  the  toMTis  would  give  them  in  weakening  the  power  of 
the  feudal  nobles,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  grant  their  aid 
to  the  efforts  of  the  cities  whenever  they  were  able  to  do 
so.  They  early  labored  to  establish  the  principle  that- 
the  commune,  once  formed,  belonged  immediately  to  the 
king,  and  was  in  an  especial  degree  under  his  protection. 
But  the  early  Capetians  were  in  a  peculiar  position. 
From  the  weakness  of  their  general  power  they  were  es- 
pecially dependent  upon  the  support  of  the  church,  and 
this  was  in  truth  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  their  strength. 
In  many  cases  they  could  not  break  with  these  allies 
nor  afford  to  support  their  enemies,  though  they  might 
on  other  grounds  have  been  glad  to  do  so.  "We  have 
them,  therefore,  following  a  policy  which  seems  contra- 
dictory, aiding  the  communes  where  they  could  do  so 
safely,  and  opposing  them  elsewhere,  because  in  the  lat- 
ter cases  there  was  danger  of  losing  more  than  might  be 
gained. 

As  the  monarchy  grew  stronger  and  more  independent 
of  the  support  of  the  church,  we  find  the  kings  adopting 
a  more  consistent  policy,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth  century  distinctly  favoring  the  cities.  As  it 
grew  stronger  still,  and  something  like  a  real  centraliza- 
tion began  to  be  possible,  then  the  commune  Anth  its 


296  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOX 

rights  of  independent  local  government  stood,  as  tlie 
king  looked  at  it,  mncli  in  tlie  same  attitude  toward  the 
general  government  as  that  of  the  independent  feudal, 
baron.  It  represented  a  bit  of  the  territory  of  the  state 
in  which  the  central  power  did  not  have  free  way.  Con- 
sequently, we  have  later  kings  endeavoring  to  break  down 
the  privileges  of  the  communes  and  to  gain  a  direct  con- 
trol by  introducing  into  them  royal  executive  and  judi- 
cial officers.  This  process  can  be  clearly  traced  before 
the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  it  is  very  speedily 
concluded,  partly  because  of  the  isolated  position  of  the 
communes  and  their  inability  to  combine  as  the  nobles 
did,  and  partly  because  they  had  always  recognized  a 
more  direct  right  of  government  on  the  part  of  the  king, 
and  had  never  become  independent,  as  had  the  cities  of 
Italy  and  Germany. 

Towai'd  the  towns  which  were  not  communes,  the 
villes  de  bourgeoisie,  the  policy  of  the  kings  was  more  con- 
sistent and  more  steadily  favorable.  These  towns  had 
not  gained  a  complete  self-government  and  were  not 
closed  against  the  officers  of  the  king,  but  their  formation 
was  as  great  an  aid  to  him  as  that  of  the  communes  in 
his  effijrts  to  build  up  the  power  of  the  central  govern- 
ment by  weakening  the  power  of  the  nobles. 

But  in  many  other  ways,  and  really  in  more  decisive 
ways  than  by  dividing  their  fiefs  and  weakening  their 
local  power,  the  growth  of  the  cities,  or  the  increase  of 
commerce  as  the  underlpng  cause,  rendered  it  no  longer 
possible  for  the  feudal  lords  to  maintain  the  position 
which  they  had  held  in  the  state. 

As  one  direct  result,  a  much  larger  amount  of  money 
was  brought  into  circulation,  and  its  use  was  made  more 
general.  In  the  thirteenth  century  not  only  did  gold 
begin  to  be  coined,  but  also  coins  of  much  smaller  de- 
nominations than  formerly,  a  sure  sign  that  commercial 


THE   GKOWTII   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS    RESULTS      297 

transactions  were  becoming  more  frequent  among  the 
lower  classes,  and  that  sales  were  beginning  to  take  the 
place  of  barter.  From  the  cities  and  smaller  towns  the 
money  would  work  its  way  into  the  country  and  grad- 
ually come  into  more  common  use  among  the  laborers 
on  the  farms. 

This  increased  circulation  of  money  struck  at  the  very 
root  of  feudalism.  The  economic  foundation  of  the 
feudal  system  was  the  scarcity  of  money  and  the  impos- 
sibility of  using  it  freely  for  purchases  to  supply  daily 
needs  which  must  be  supplied  in  any  state  of  society.  It 
was  not  possible,  in  such  conditions,  for  rent  and  income 
to  take  any  other  form  than  that  of  personal  services 
and  payments  of  produce.  Feudalism  had  a  foundation 
also  in  the  political  conditions  of  the  time,  as  we  have 
seen,  but  it  was  hardly  possible  for  the  political  con- 
ditions to  change,  to  such  an  extent  as  to  lead  to  the 
overthrow  of  the  system,  so  long  as  it  was  impossible  to 
substitute  some  other  kind  of  payment  for  payments  in 
services  and  in  kind. 

As  soon  as  money  came  into  increased  general  circula- 
tion the  situation  was  changed.  It  became  possible  to 
substitute  definite  and  specific  contracts  for  the  arrange- 
ments, always  more  or  less  vague,  of  the  feudal  customs, 
and  the  increased  usefulness  of  money  was  a  convincing 
argument  with  the  lord,  in  very  many  cases  at  least,  that 
the  money  paid  in  commutation  of  services  would  be  of 
greater  value  to  him  than  the  services  themselves,  uncer- 
tain and  irregular,  and  performed  with  great  reluctance 
as  they  usually  were.  But  the  introduction  of  money 
payments  in  this  way,  in  the  place  of  feudal  services, 
while  it  left  the  feudal  lord  in  title  and  rank  and  social 
position  what  he  had  been,  deprived  him  of  his  immedi- 
ate personal  hold  upon  his  subjects  and  undermined  his 
political  power. 


298  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

It  must  not  be  understood  that  this  was  the  sole  or 
even  the  chief  cause  in  the  fall  of  feudalism.  A  hundred 
causes  worked  together  to  that  end.  Nor  must  it  be  sup- 
posed that  all  feudal  services  disappeared.  It  was  only 
here  and  there  in  the  most  favored  localities  that  this  was 
the  case,  and  in  some  of  these  even,  some  feudal  services 
have  remained,  in  form  at  least,  to  the  present  time, 
wliile  in  some  parts  of  Europe  feudalism  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  have  declined  at  the  end  of  the  middle  ages.  . 
Nearly  everywhere  it  had,  however,  and  for  peasant  and 
burgher,  in  their  rise  to  independence,  scarcely  anything 
was  so  helpful  as  the  increased  circulation  of  money. 

This  more  general  use  of  money  had  also  most  impor- 
tant consequences  in  another  direction.  It  made  taxa- 
tion possible.  The  extension  of  commerce  had  led  to 
large  accumulations  of  wealth  in  the  cities.  Here  was  a 
new  resource  for  the  state  which,  if  it  could  be  made  to 
contribute  to  public  purposes  in  some  systematic  and  re- 
liable way,  would  relieve  the  central  power  of  its  de- 
pendence upon  the  feudal  system,  and  give  it  a  new  and 
more  solid  foundation  on  which  to  build,  an  indispensa- 
ble foundation  indeed.  Arrangements  long  in  use  pro- 
vided, as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  an  easy  way  of 
introducing  the  cities  directly  into  the  state  machin- 
ery, and  of  obtaining  from  them  their  consent  to  a  levy 
of  taxes  of  which  they  were  to  pay  the  larger  portion. 
The  cities  showed  evident  signs  of  a  reluctance  to  part 
with  their  wealth,  as  was  natural,  but  there  were,  on  the 
other  hand,  reasons  of  their  own  which  prevailed  with 
them  to  consent. 

The  accumulation  of  capital  in  the  towns  and  the  ex- 
tension of  commerce  throughout  the  country  created  an 
intense  demand  for  order  and  security.  Nothing  makes 
so  strong  a  demand  for  these  things,  or  tends  to  secure 
thorn   so   perfectly,  as   the  possession  of   wealth.     The 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS    RESULTS      299 

feudal  confusion,  the  private  wars,  the  robber  baron,  so 
prominent  a  feature  of  declining  feudalism,  were  the 
deadly  foes  of  commerce,  as  the  merchant  was  of  them. 
His  j)rotection  was  to  be  found  in  the  establishment  of  a 
public  power  able  to  suppress  these  evils  and  to  main- 
tain order  throughout  the  state,  and  wherever  such  a 
public  power  was  forming  the  capitalist  class  of  the  day 
came  to  its  aid  with  all  its  resources.  No  doubt  it  was 
anxious  to  do  this  with  as  little  expense  to  itself  as  pos- 
sible, but  it  was  ready  to  sacrifice  its  wealth  unsparingly 
in  its  own  defence  when  directly  attacked,  and  it  did  not 
fail  to  see  the  advantage  it  would  gain  from  providing 
the  king  with  a  revenue  which  would  support  a  standing 
army  and  a  national  system  of  courts  of  justice. 

Commerce  and  wealth  came  to  the  aid  of  the  forming 
national  government  not  merely  in  the  fact  that  they 
created  a  demand  for  established  order  but  also  by  a 
demand  for  uniformity.  Commerce  extended  from  com- 
mon centres  through  the  entire  state,  and  bound  it  to- 
gether in  a  united  system  with  lines  as  living  and  real  as 
those  of  the  church  organization.  The  interests  of  the 
merchant  were  alike  everywhere,  and  it  was  extremely 
important  for  him  to  know  what  he  had  to  expect  in 
every  locality.  The  arbitrary  exactions  of  the  uncon- 
trolled feudal  lord ;  the  varying  tolls  and  dues  of  every 
little  fief;  a  hundred  systems  of  coinage  in  whose  purity 
and  honesty  no  dependence  could  be  placed ;  worse  still, 
if  possible,  the  local  customary  law  differing  from  every 
other  in  points  perhaps  of  the  greatest  importance  to  the 
merchant  and  enforced  by  an  interested  local  court  from 
which  there  might  be  no  appeal — these  things  were,  in  the 
long  run,  more  serious  obstacles  in  the  way  of  commerce 
than  private  wars  and  robber  barons.  The  whole  influ- 
ence of  the  merchant  class  and  of  the  cities  was  toward 
doing  away  with  this  local  confusion  of  practice,  and 


300  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOT^ 

toward   putting   in   the   place  of  it  a   national  control, 
national  coinage,  conrts,  and  law. 

In  tlie  matter  of  a  national  laAv  the  influence  of  the 
cities  was  especially  strong.  It  was  in  this  respect  not 
merely  a  general  influence,  a  favoring  condition,  which 
the  cities  created.  In  the  cities  the  professional  lawyer 
made  his  appearance  and  the  study  of  the  Roman  law 
was  begun  and  actively  pursued.  This  was  possible  be- 
cause the  growth  of  the  cities  and  the  accumulation  of 
Avealth  in  them  meant  leisure.  That  leisure  which  had 
been  possible  in  the  earlier  middle  ages  only  to  the 
ecclesiastic  became  possible  now  to  men  outside  the 
church.  They  could  devote  themselves  to  intellectual 
pursuits  with  a  certainty  of  support.  The  new  study  of 
the  Roman  law,  which  began  in  this  way,  and- which  the 
cities  strongly  favored,  as  a  general  and  highly  organ- 
ized system  ready  made  for  theii*  purpose  in  place  of  the 
feudal  variety  and  confusion,  gave  congenial  employment 
to  this  new  class  and  gave  rise  to  the  professional  laAvyer. 
He  was  a  layman  and  a  hourgeoisc,  but  he  was  a  ma*  of 
thoroughly  trained  intellect,  of  self-respect  and  j)ride  as 
great  as  the  nobles,  and  he  cherished  the  strongest  ideas, 
derived  from  the  system  of  law  in  which  he  had  been 
trained,  of  the  supremacy  of  a  national  law,  and  .of  the 
right  of  the  sovereign  to  exact  obedience  ever3^where. 
It  followed  that,  in  his  efiforts  to  recover  the  legislative 
and  judicial  power,  and  to  establish  a  uniform  law,  the 
king  had  not  merely  the  general  support  of  the  cities, 
but  they  furnished  him  also  with  a  readj^-made  and 
highly  perfected  legal  system  capable,  of  being  imme- 
diately applied,  and  with  a  force  of  trained  men  earnestly 
devoted  to  its  establishment  and  enforcement. 

We  have  here  sketched  somewhat  briefly  the  influ- 
ences which  commerce  everywhere  tended  to  exert,  and 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS    RESULTS      BOl 

the  results  wliicli  it  everywliere  tended  to  produce. 
These  are  to  be  found  reaching  their  logical  conclusion, ' 
in  combination  Avith  other  causes,  only  in  France,  and 
there  the  logical  result  involved  the  destruction  of  the 
independence  of  the  cities.  Other  states  of  Europe 
show  results  of  this  movement  which  are  peculiar  to 
themselves,  and  some  of  them  exhibit  tendencies  which 
just  as  truly  belong  to  it,  but  which  do  not  appear  so 
clearly  in  French  history  because  there  the  political  re- 
sult was  so  fully  worked  out  in  the  establishment  of  an 
absolute  central  government. 

In  Italy  the  existence  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire, 
together  with  the  jiolicy  which  the  popes  adopted  in  de- 
fence of  their  political  dependence,  prevented  the  forma- 
tion of  any  native  national  government  while  the  empire 
furnished  the  pretence  of  one.  In  consequence  of  this 
the  cities,  when  they  became  strong,  found  themselves 
depending  upon  a  shadowy  state  whose  sovereignty  they 
recognized  in  form,  but  which  was  not  at  hand  to  exer- 
cise-a  real  and  direct  government.  As  a  result,  the  cities 
in  Italy  found  it  easy  to  become  little  independent  states, 
after  the  manner  of  the  feudal  principalities  in  Germany. 
Their  early  and  rapid  growth  enabled  them  to  absorb 
nearly  all  the  nobles  of  the  country,  and  they  intrenched 
themselves  so  strongly  that  when  the  Hohenstaufen  em- 
perors attempted  to  bring  them  under  a  direct  control, 
they  were  able,  in  combination,  as  we  have  seen,  to  main- 
tain and  secure  their  independence. 

The  peculiarities  of  their  growth  had  made  them  as 
independent  of  one  another  as  they  were  of  the  state, 
and  except  when  brought  together  by  some  common 
danger,  each  pursued  its  own  interests  without  regard  to 
the  others.  It  often  happened  that  conflicting  interests 
led  to  the  fiercest  struggles  between  them,  ending  only 
with  the  ruin  of  one  of  the  rivals,  as  in  the  contest  be- 


302  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tween  Florence  and  Pisa,  or  that  between  Venice  and 
Genoa.  Many  of  them  were  able  to  extend  their  sov- 
ereignty over  the  surrounding  territory  and  smaller 
towns,  and  to  bring  together  a  considerable  state  like 
that  of  Milan.  In  nearly  all  of  them,  toward  the  end  of 
the  middle  ages,  corruption  among  the  citizens  or  the 
necessities  of  their  military  defence  made  it  easy  for 
unscrupulous  and  enterprising  men  to  establish  tyrannies 
and  to  destroy  their  rejDublican  governments,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Medici  family  in  Florence  or  the  Sforza 
family  in  Milan. 

The  diversity  of  life  in  these  Italian  cities,  the  multi- 
plicity of  their  interests,  their  rivalries  with  one  another, 
and  the  party  struggles  within  tlieir  walls,  stimulated  a 
general  mental  activity  among  their  citizens,  especially 
in  the  case  of  the  large  leisure  class  which  their  great 
wealth  had  created.  And  so  in  the  cities  of  Italy,  earlier 
than  anywhere  else,  a  keen  and  cultivated  intellectual 
society  formed  itself,  which  was  characterized  by  many 
modern  traits,  and  which  prepared  the  way  for  the  re- 
vival of  learning. 

In  Germany  a  considerable  number  of  cities  in  fa- 
vored localities  reached  the  same  position  of  local  inde- 
pendence as  those  of  Italy,  and  for  the  same  reason — 
their  immediate  dependence  upon  a  nominal  national 
government  which  had  lost  all  power  to  interfere  in  the 
management  of  local  affairs.  There  existed,  then,  in 
Germany,  as  in  Italy,  permanently  independent  little 
city  states  regulating  their  own  affairs  under  a  republi- 
can government.  Many  of  these  continued  independent 
into  modern  times,  and  three  of  them— Liibeck,  Ham- 
burg, aud  Bremen — are-at  present  states  of  the  federal 
empire  of  Germany. 

Many  of  these  cities  were,  however,  in  the  end,  to  un- 
dergo the  same  fate  which  befell  the  French  cities,  and 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      303 

to  be  absorbed  into  some  neighboring  centralized  state 
founded  upon  a  feudal  territory.  But  these  states  were 
formed  in  Germany  only  at  a  relatively  late  date,  some  of 
the  most  extensive  of  them  not  until  after  the  middle  ages, 
and  there  was  no  one  of  them,  at  whatever  time  formed, 
large  enough  to  include  within  its  government  the  circle 
of  commercial  territory  in  which  the  cities  were  inter- 
ested. It  hajipened,  therefore,  in  Germany,  that  the 
cities  were  thrown  upon  their  own  resources  for  protec- 
tion, and  were  obliged  themselves  to  repress  the  evils 
which  a  national  government  would  naturally  have  held 
in  check,  and  which  even  a  forming  central  power,  like 
that  of  France,  was  able  to  deal  with  in  a  constantly  in- 
creasing degree.  As  a  consequence  of  this  there  appears 
in  Germany  a  political  result  of  the  commercial  develop- 
ment which  is  not  seen  in  the  same  form  elsewhere — the 
city  leagues.  The  Italian  cities  united  together  in  the 
Lombard  League,  in  their  struggle  against  the  Hohenstau- 
fen  emperors,  but  that  was  a  league  for  mutual  defence 
against  a  special  danger,  and  it  did  not  have  the  perma- 
nence nor  the  political  character  of  the  German  leagues. 
The  greatest  of  these  leagues  was  the  Hanseatic, 
formed  during  the  thirteenth  century  and  reaching  its 
height  in  the  fourteenth.  Its  power  extended  over'  the 
whole  north  of  Germany  and  into  all  the  countries  bor- 
dering on  the  Baltic  and  North  Seas.  Almost  a  nation 
itself  in  its  organization  and  resources,  it  dealt  with 
states  on  equal  terms  and  protected  its  commercial 
rights  with  great  fleets.  The  League  of  the  Ehine  Cities, 
almost  as  powerful,  and  perhaps  even  of  earlier  forma- 
tion, was  an  equally  effective  agent  in  keeping  the  peace 
and  protecting  commerce,  within  the  range  of  its  influ- 
ence. So  efficient  an  instrument  in  preserving  order  did 
the  league  prove  itself  to  be  that  at  the  very  close  of  the 
middle  ages  the  free  cities  of  southern  Germany  entered 


/ 


304  WEDtEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

into  an  alliance  of  the  sort  with  the  princes,  who  had 
succeeded  in  forming  states  in  that  part  of  the  country 
— the  so-called  Swabian  League — to  put  down  disorder, 
caused  mostly  by  the  desijairing  and  desperate  efforts  of 
the  small  nobles  to  preserve  their  political  independence. 
In  England  the  city  never  played  so  important  a  part  in 
public  affairs  as  on  the  continent,  and  the  reason  for  this 
fact  is  easyH;o  be  found.  In  England,  the  feudal  system 
was  never  established  as  on  the  continent,  and  the  state 
never  sj)lit  into  fragments— the  law  was  always  national 
law.  The  central  government  was  always  strong  and  had 
all  parts  of  the  state  in  hand,  and  the  improvement  of  that 
government  was  an  orderl}^  and  natural  process  of  growth, 
in  which  all  parts  of  the  community  shared  alike,  no  one 
part  needed  to  be  uprooted  and  destroyed  by  the  others. 
The  existence  of  a  definite  machinery  of  free  local  self- 
government — the  township  or  the  hundred  organization 
— furnished  as  ready  a  means  by  which  the  city  could 
secure  control  of  its  own  affairs  as  the  forms  of  the  feu- 
dal system  gave  to  the  commune  in  France.^  But  this 
ver}^  fact  incorporated  it  completely  in  the  organization 
of  the  shire  or  the  state,  of  which  the  township  or  the 
hundi-ed  formed  a  regular  part,  and  prevented  the  Eng- 
lish city  from  establishing  a  perfect  independence  like 
the  Italian  or  German  city,  or  even  from  coming  so 
near  to  it  as  did  the  communes  of  France,  In  the  long 
struggle  for  English  liberty  the  boroughs  were  to  play 
an  honorable  part,  but  they  did  it,  not  as  independent 
powers,  but  as  corporate  elements  of  the  state. 

Translated  into  other  terms,  this  increase  of  commerce 
and  development  of  the  cities  becomes  the  rise  of  the 
Third  Estate  into  a  position  of  influence  and  power,  be- 

'See  Gross,  TJie  Gvild  Merchnnt,  Vol.  I.,  p.  85,  aud  Stubbs,  Constitu- 
tional History  of  England,  Vol.  I.,  p.  407  ff. 


THE   GROWTH   O^   COMMERCE   AND   ITS    RESULTS      305 

side  the  otlier  two.  This  is  a  fact  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance in  the  general  history  of  civilization,  because  this 
progress  once  begun,  though  it  was  to  be  here  and  there 
very  slow,  and  sometimes  even  ended,  to  all  appearance, 
in  reality  never  ceased,  and  our  own  time  is  character- 
ized by  its  complete  triumph  and  the  practical  absorp- 
tion, both  economically  and  politically,  of  the  other  two 
estates  in  the  third. 

All  the  middle  ages  may  have  recognized  the  exist- 
ence of  three  classes  in  the  population — a  working  class 
besides  the  clergy  and  the  nobles — but  politically  and  in 
all  practical  concerns  no  account  was  taken  of  this  third 
class  until  it  began  to  possess  wealth.  The  First  Estate, 
the  clergy,  with  the  Second  Estate,  the  nobles,  controlled 
everything,  and  no  one  outside  their  ranks  had  any  voice 
in  affairs. 

With  the  growth  of  commerce  this  began  to  be 
changed.  Wealth  meant  power.  The  ready  money  of 
the  merchant  was  as  effective  a  weapon  as  the  sword  of 
the  nobles,  or  the  spiritual  arms  of  the  church.  Very 
speedily,  also,  the  men  of  the  cities  began  to  seize  upon 
one  of  the  weapons  which  up  to  this  time  had  been  the 
exclusive  possession  of  the  church,  and  one  of  the  main 
sources  of  its  power — knowledge  and  intellectual  train- 
ing. With  these  two  weapons  in  its  hands,  wealth  and 
knowledge,  the  Third  Estate  forced  its  way  into  influence, 
and  compelled  the  other  two  to  recognize  it  as  a  partner 
with  themselves  in  the  management  of  public  concerns. 

This  formation  of  the  Third  Estate  must  not  be  re- 
garded as  the  formation  of  the  "  people  "  in  the  modern 
sense  of  that  word.  This  is  a  very  important  historical 
distinction  and  one  that  should  be  made  clear  if  possible. 

According  to  our  modern  democratic  ideas  the  "  peo- 
ple "  includes  the  whole  body  of  inhabitants  in  tlie 
coulj^try.  If  we  say,  "the  will  of  the  people  controls  the 
.20 


306  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

state,"  we  mean  tlie  will  of  the  mass  of  the  population 
without  distinction  of  classes.  But  such  an  idea  would 
have  been  impossible  to  the  middle  ages.  It  would  have 
been  foreign  to  all  its  notions.  Even  within  the  self-gov- 
erning cities  the  governments  were  not  democratic,  and 
they  tended,  in  most  cases,  to  become  more  and  more 
aristocratic,  and  the  distinction  between  "patricians" 
and  common  people  was  as  clearly  drawn  as  outside  their 
walls,  though  based  upon  different  grounds. 

The  rise  of  the  Third  Estate  did  not  mean  the  forma- 
tion of  the  "  people."  It  was  the  first  step  toward  it,  but, 
in  the  middle  ages,  it  went  no  further  than  to  bring  up 
beside  the  other  classes,  who  had  heretofore  controlled 
the  state,  and  who  continued  to  retain  their  distinct 
existence  as  classes,  and  nearly  everywhere  kept  a  pre- 
ponderance of  influence,  another  class,  clearly  marked 
within  itself  as  a  class  and  clearly  separated  from  them. 
Beyond  this  the  middle  ages  did  not  go,  except  in  Italy, 
where  something  almost  like  the  "  people  "  may  be  seen, 
though  in  England,  also,  one  very  decisive  step  toward 
modern  times  had  been  taken  in  the  association  of  the 
smaller  nobles  with  the  "  commons."  The  government 
which  resulted  from  the  rise  of  the  Third  Estate  was  a 
government  of  classes  and  separate  interests,  with  the 
characteristic  weaknesses  of  such  a  government,  and  un- 
less reinforced  from  other  sources  presented  no  serious 
obstacle  to  the  growth  of  absolutism. 

The  Third  Estate  was  itself  divided  into  two  well- 
marked  divisions — the  city  population  and  the  laboring 
class  of  the  country  districts.  This  distinction  was  so 
clearly  marked  that  in  some  countries  the  peasants  were 
reckoned  as  forming  a  Fourth  Estate.  The  agricultural 
laborers  of  Europe  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  gained 
political  rights  or  any  share  in  the  government  at  the 
close  of  the  middle  ages  ;  indeed,  with  insignificant  ex- 


THE   GROWTH   OF   COMMERCE   AND   ITS   RESULTS      307 

ceptionSj  and  with  the  exception  of  course  of  America,  it 
was  reserved  for  the  nineteenth  century  to  make  this 
advance. 

The  Third  Estate,  considered  as  having  an  influence  on 
public  affairs,  was  in  reality  only  the  burgher  class. 
This  was,  however,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  drawn  largely 
from  the  country  population,  though  the  nucleus  around 
which  it  gathered  was  in  all  cases,  except  in  the  new 
towns,  the  city  population  which  had  descended  from 
earlier  times.  As  commerce  increased,  means  of  employ- 
ment naturally  multiplied.  Manufactures  develo2:)ed; 
new  lines  of  industry  and  of  mechanical  work  were  opened. 
An  easier  and  more  advantageous  life  was  to  be  had  in 
the  cities  than  in  the  country,  and  a  current  set  constantly 
into  them  of  the  more  enterprising  and  better  situated 
peasants  to  take  advantage  of  the  more  favorable  condi- 
tions there,  and  to  reinforce  the  Third  Estate.  The 
cities  themselves  encouraged  this  tendency  and  sometimes 
also  the  suzerain,  or  the  sovereign  of  the  city,  by  the 
grant  of  his  protection  to  immigrants.  It  had  its  reflex 
influence  also  upon  the  people  remaining  in  the  country, 
by  securing  them  bettiar  treatment  or  even  special  privi- 
leges from  lords  anxious  to  retain  the  peasants  on  their 
lands. 

In  the  case  of  the  laboring  classes  of  the  country  the 
end  of  the  Roman  empire  and  the  beginning  of  the  mid- 
dle ages  had  seen  the  slave  transformed  into  the  serf. 
This  change  consisted  in  giving  certain  limited  rights  to 
a  class  which  had  before  possessed  no  rights  whatever. 
A  sei-f  is  a  slave  to  whom  a  few  but  not  all  the  rights  of 
a  freeman  have  been  granted.  He  has  taken  the  first 
step  toward  becoming  a  freeman.  That  he  is  chained  to 
the  soil  is  at  the  beginning  as  much  of  an  advantage  as 
it  is  later  a  disadvantage,  for  it  secures  him  a  home,  a 
family,  and  certain  limited  rights  of  property,  none  of 


308  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

wliicli  can  .be  taken  away  from  liim.  It  was  perfectly- 
natural  tliat  iu  the  course  of  time,  as  the  general  condi- 
tions which  surrounded  the  serf  improved,  the  limitations 
upon  his  right  should  come  to  be  the  main  things  no- 
ticed, and  that  it  should  be  forgotten  how  very  little 
those  limitations  were  regarded  centuries  before  in  com- 
parison with  the  rights  then  granted. 

This  change  to  serfdom  w^as  accomplished  in  the  later 
empire  by  economic  causes,  chiefly  by  the  difliculty  of 
getting  a  sufficient  number  of  agricultural  laborers.  The 
slavery  of  Christian  men  was  not  entirely  extinguished, 
however,  though  forbidden.  It  lingered  on  iu  various 
ways  until  the  very  end  of  the  middle  ages. 

In  the  times  which  follow  the  German  conquests  there 
is  to  be  seen  a  mixture  of  phenomena.  Exactly  oj^posite 
things  seem  to  be  happening  at  diflerent  dates  or  in  dif- 
ferent places  at  the  same  date.  In  some  cases  freemen 
sink  down  toward  the  serf  class,  and  many  of  those  in 
the  higher  grades  of  serfdom  represent  earlier  free  labor- 
ers. Sometimes,  on  the  contrary,  the  lower  classes  may 
be  seen  rising  toward  the  higher,  and  reinforcing  from 
this  source  the  same  upper  grades.  In  a  general  view 
of  the  whole  period  we  may  say  that  the  condition  of  the 
laborer  is,  in  most  particulars,  improving ;  or  the  fact 
would  be,  perhaps,  more  accurately  stated  in  this  way : 
that  the  forms  of  land  tenure  and  the  general  economic 
conditions  of  the  middle  ages  made  it,  on  the  whole,  easy 
for  the  serf  who  was  somewhat  more  enterprising  than 
his  class,  or  who  found  himself  in  a  better  situation  to 
improve  his  condition  and  to  rise  toward  the  rank  of  a 
freeman. 

This  fact  explains  the  great  variety  of  rights  possessed 
by  the  agricultural  laborers  of  a  given  time  iu  any  one 
of  the  countries  of  Europe,  and  as  well  the  great  variety 
of  legal  conditions  which  can  often  be  found  upon    a 


"the  growth  of  commerce  and  its  results     309 

single  estate.  These  various  gradations  of  riglit  and  of 
tennre  represent  the  intermediate  steps  or  stages  through 
whicli  the  serf  is  passing  on  his  way  to  freedom.  On 
the  same  estate  there  may  be  some,  perhaps,  whose  con- 
dition is  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  that  of  slaves, 
others  avIio  have  a  few  more  rights,  others  still  more,  and 
some  who  are  almost  indistinguishable  from  full  free- 
men. 

This  second  change  from  serf  to  free  laborer,  like  the 
earlier  one  from  slave  to  serf,  was  determined  by  eco- 
nomic causes,  often  by  the  same  one,  indeed,  the  scarcity 
of  laborers  and  the  consequent  willingness  of  the  land- 
lord to  grant  better  conditions  of  tenure  in  order  to  gain 
new  laborers  or  to  keep  his  old  ones.  It  consisted  almost 
everywhere  in  the  transformation  of  vague  and  indefinite 
personal  services  into  clearly  expressed  and  definitely 
limited  services,  and  these  into  payments  of  rent,  some- 
times in  produce  and  then  finally  in  many  places  in 
money.  When  a  fixed  money  payment  took  the  place  of 
labor  services  the  serf  had  become  a  freeman.'  It  is 
characteristic  of  the  later  part  of  the  middle  ages  that 
these  various  forms  of  servile  tenure  coexist  on  the 
same  estate,  and  very  frequently  in  the  case  of  the  same 
man,  who  will  be  held  to  render  in  part  services  and  in 
part  rent  payments. 

In  the  more  favored  parts  of  Europe  this  process  of 
emancipation  was  completed  by  the  end  of  the  middle 
ages.  In  Italy  serfdom  had  disappeared  as  early,  prob- 
ably, as  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century.  In  England 
the  same  result  was  reached,  with  some  exceptions,  by 

'  111  some  places,  notably  in  Italy,  there  were  large  numbers  of  eman- 
cipations by  charters,  whicli  gave  religious  reasons  for  the  act,  or  moral 
considerations,  drawn  often  from  the  Roman  law,  like  the  natural 
equality  of  all  meu.  If  these  are  really  exceptions  to  the  operation  of 
the  causes  mentioned  in  the  text,  they  are  not  numerous  enough  to 
afEect  the  movement  as  a  whole. 


310  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION" 

the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth.  Of  parts  of  France  and 
of  Germany  the  same  thing  is  true.  In  some  of  the  less 
favorably  situated  parts  of  the  continent  serfdom  or  some 
features  of  serfdom  lived  on  until  the  revolutionary  age 
which  opened  the  present  centuiy. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


THE   FORMATION   OF   FRANCE 


Wherever  the  influences  which  were  described  in  the 
last  chapter  had  an  opportunity  to  work  under  favorable 
political  conditions,  only  one  result  was  possible — a  na- 
tional consciousness  began  to  arise  and  the  national  gov- 
ernment began  to  be  more  directly  an  expression  of  that 
consciousness  :  governments,  in  other  words,  began  to 
exist  having  reality  as  well  as  a  name  to  be.  The 
improvement  of  the  intellectual  conditions,  which  will 
be  the  subject  of  the  next  chapter,  rendered  also  essential 
service  in  the  same  direction,  in  the  growth  of  general 
intelligence  and  the  creation  of  a  wider  community  of 
ideas.  But  the  connection  of  the  intellectual  advance 
with  the  formation  of  state  governments  is  less  direct 
and  immediate  than  that  of  the  results  which  followed 
ap  increasing  commerce.  We  have  just  seen  in  how 
many  directions  these  results  were  a  direct  attack  upon 
the  older  feudal  conditions  and  institutions,  and  it  is 
naturally  in  order  now  to  examine  tlio^  special  efforts 
which  were  made  by  the  forming  governments  to  take 
advantage  of  these  new  influences,  and  in  doing  so  to 

'  The  facts  of  French  history  may  be  followed  in  the  Histories  of 
France  of  Kitchen.  Duruy,  or  Guizot.  There  is  no  adeijoatt'  account  in 
English  of  the  institutional  history.  Luchaire,  Manvcl  des  Institutuins 
Frn7igaises,  is  the  best  account  frona  the  accession  of  the  Capetians  to 
1338. 


312  MKDIP]VAL   CIVILIZATION 

sketch  the  forms  of  government  and  constitution  result- 
ing in  the  various  states  of  the  time. 

In  two  of  the  leading  states  of  Europe  governments 
which  may  be  called  really  national  were  established — in 
France  and  England.  Their  history  is  consequently  of 
greater  interest  to  us  and  will  occupy  us  most  fully. 
One  other  country,  Spain,  arrived  at  a  government  which 
embraced  the  whole  territory  of  the  state,  but  which  was 
not  supported,  as  in  the  other  two  cases,  by  a  thoroughly 
united  mitional  feeling.  In  neither  Italy  nor  Germany 
was  any  true  general  government  for  the  whole  state 
established,  for  reasons  which  we  have  already  seen ;  but 
in  both  cases  some  interesting  political  results  are  to  be 
noticed  and  many  indications  that  a  genuine  national 
feeling  and  spirit  existed,  though  unable  to  express  it- 
self through  political  institutions,  while  in  many  of  the 
minor  states  which  arose  in  portions  of  these  countries, 
governments,  which  were  really  national  in  everything 
except  extent  of  territory,  were  formed. 

In  the  case  of  France  the  great  fact  at  the  opening  of 
its  national  history  was  feudalism.  We  have  seen  how 
coinpletely  that  system  prevailed  in  the  France  of  the 
tenth  century,  and  the  prevalence  of  feudalism  meant 
the  existence  of  two  fatal  obstacles  in  the  w^ay  of  the 
formation  of  any  efficient  national  government.  It 
meant  the  geographical  subdivision  of  the  country  into 
independent  fragments,  and  it  meant  the  subdivision  of 
the  general  authority  in  the  same  way,  so  that  the  usual 
functions  of  a  general  government  could  no  longer  be 
exercised  throughout  the  state  by  the  nominal  central 
power,  but  were  exercised  in  fragments  by  local  powers. 
We  have  seen .  also  how  the  Capetian  dynasty  arose 
out  of  this  feudalism  itself,  and  though'  possessed  in 
theory  of   very  extensive   powers,  had   in   reality  only 


THE   FORMATIOT^   OF   FEATS'CE-  313 

SO  mncli  power  as  it  could  derive  from  its  ovm  family 
resources. 

These  facts  indicate  clearly  enough  the  twofold  task 
which  lay  before  the  Capetian  dynasty  at  the  beginning 
of  its  history,  and  which  it  performed  so  faithfully  and 
so  successfully.  It  must  reconstruct  the  geographical 
unity  of  France  by  bringing  all  the  fragments  into  which 
its  territor}^  had  been  separated  under  its  own  immediate 
control — a  task  which  was  to  be  rendered  doubly  difficidt 
b}'  the  fact  that  several  of  the  largest  of  these  fragments 
were  in  the  possession  of  a  foreign  sovereign,  the  king  of 
England.  It  had,  in  the  second  place,  to  recover  the 
prerogatives  usurped  by  the  rulers  of  these  fragments  so 
that  it  might  itself  exercise  them  in  fact  as  well  as  possess 
them  in  theory,  and  in  doing  so  it  must,  in  great  measure, 
create  the  national  institutions  through  which  these  hmc- 
tions  of  a  central  government  could  be  exercised. 

The  first  four  Capetian  kings,  from  Hugh  Capet  to 
Philip  I.,  do  not  seem  to  have  been  altogether  uncon- 
scious of  the  great  problems  which  they  had  to  solve,  but 
their  situation  was  such  that  they  could  do  but  little. 
The  first  steps  were  necessarily  very  slow,  and  it  should 
be  considered  by  no  means  a  small  contribution  to  the 
final  result  that  they  were  able  to  strengthen  the  hold  of 
the  Capetian  family  upon  the  throne  of  France,  as  they 
unquestionably  did,  to  prevent  any  further  loss  of  royal 
power  and  maintain  the  respect  for  the  kingship  in  the 
turbulent  society  of  the  time,  and  also  to  continue  and 
confirm  the  alliance  with  the  church,  which  had  aided  so 
greatly  the  rise  of  their  family  and  from  which  it  had 
still  so  much  to  gain.  In  comparison  with  these  more 
general  and  negative,  but  not  therefore  unimportant,  re- 
sults, any  specific  gains  which  these  kings  made  were 
insignificant.  Philip  I.  does  not  rank  in  history  as  a 
very  strong  or  energetic  king,  but  he  saw  clearly  enough 


314  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

wliat  was  the  first  necessary  step  to  be  taken,  the  con- 
solidation of  liis  own  feudal  state,  the  duchy  of  France, 
and  he  bequeathed  that  policy  to  his  successor! 

With  Louis  VI.,  the  Fat,  in  1108,  the  work  was  taken 
vigorously  and  successfully  in  hand,  and  the  succession 
opens  of  the  great  Capetian  sovereigns — of  the  sovereigns 
who  may  justly  be  called  great  in  the  work  of  construct- 
ing France,  if  not  in  any  wider  sense.  The  chief  work  of 
Louis's  reign  was  to  overthrow  the  small  nobles  who  were 
his  vassals  as  duke,  and  who  had  been  making  themselves 
as  independent  in  their  smaller  territories  as  the  great 
vassals  had  throughout  the  greater  France,  and  some  of 
whom  had  brought  it  to  such  a  pass  that  it  was  almost 
impossible  for  the  king  to  travel  mth  freedom  from  one 
part  of  his  domain  to  another;  This  work  he  practically 
accomplished,  and  he  centralized  the  duchy  to  such  an 
extent  that  later  kings  had  its  undivided  resources  to 
di-aw  upon  in  the  more  severe  straggle  which  was  before 
them. 

This  struggle  with  the  great  nobles  he  also  began  with 
vigor,  though  without  any  very  marked  success.  In 
Flanders,  Champagne,  and  Aquitaine  he  asserted  the 
rights  of  the  king  and  attempted  to  maintain  them  with 
force,  and  he  carried  on  an  almost  continuous  war  with 
his  great  rival  the  Duke  of  Normandy.  Earlier  Capetian 
kings  had  recognized  the  great  strength  of  the  dukes  of 
Normandy  and  the  importance  of  having  them  as  allies 
or  of  weakening  their  power  as  opportunity  offered,  but 
the  accession  of  Duke  WilHam  to  the  Eno-lish  throne  in 
1066  had  greatly  increased  the  danger  from  this  source. 
The  continual  quarrels  in  the  English  royal  family 
through  the  whole  period  furnished  an  opportunity  which 
could  be  turned  to  advantage  by  the  French  kings,  and 
Louis  supported  the  son  of  Robei-t  against  Henry  t., 
though  in  the  end  unsuccessfully.     The  position  of  the 


THE   FORMATION   OF   FRANCE  315 

Englisli  in  France  Avas  stronger,  indeed,  at  tlie  close  of 
Louis's  reign  than  at  the  beginning,  by  reason  of  the  mar- 
riage of  'Henry's  daughter  Matikla  with  the  Count  of 
Anjou,  who  had-  been  Louis's  all}^  The  great  gain  of 
Louis's  life  vras  tlie  centralization  of  the  duchy  and  the 
decidedly  stronger 'position  which  the  king  had  gained 
throughout  all  central  France. 

In  the  next  reign,  that  of  Louis  VII.,  the  territory  held 
by  the  English  kings  upon  the  continent  was  extended  so 
widely  that  it  threatened  the  very  existence  of  an  inde- 
pendent France.  ThcAvide  fiefs  which  had  been  brought 
together  by  the  dukes  of  Aqnitaine,  covering  nearly  a 
quarter  of  the  present  territory  of  France,  fell  to  an  heir- 
ess, Eleanor,  on  the  death  of  her  father,  William  X.,  the 
last  duke.  Louis  VI.  had  not  neglected  the  oi'>portunity 
and  had  secured  the  hand  of  Eleanor  for  his  son  Louis. 
But  there  existed  between  this  pair,  apparently,  a  com- 
plete incompatibility  of  temper.  Eleanor  had  but  little 
respect  for  Louis,  and  her  conduct  was  not  altogether 
proper,  at  least  not  in  the  eyes  of  her  somewhat  austere 
husband,  and  on  his  return  from  the  second  cmsade  the 
marriage  was  annulled.  But  such  a  prize  did  not  long 
remain  unsought,  and  in  the  same  year  she  married  young 
Henry  of  Anjou,  son  of  Matilda,  who  already  was  in  pos- 
session of  all  the  English  provinces  on  the  continent,  and 
soon  after  succeeded  to  the  English  throne.  By  this 
marriage  the  whole  of  western  France  was  united  under 
Henry  II.,  considerabl}^  more  than  one-third  its  present 
area,  and  a  far  larger  portion  than  that  directly  under  the 
control  of  the  Capetian  king.  But  these  lands  Avere 
only  loosely  held  together,  and  they  were  feudally  sub- 
ject to  Louis.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  Henry  was 
not  willing  to  lead  his  army  in  person  against  his  suzerain 
when  Ijouis  had  throA\Ti  himself  into  Toulouse  to  defend 
that  city  against  his  attack,  the  feudal  theory  proving 


316  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION- 

itself  so  strong  oven  in  such  a  case.  But  Louis  could 
make  no  headway  against  so  large  a  power,  though  he 
tried  to  do  what  he  could  and  aided  the  rebellious  sous 
of  Henry  against  their  father. 

His  successor,  Philip  Augustus,  made  it  the  great  ob- 
ject of  his  reign  to  enlarge  the  royal  domain,  that  is,  the 
part  of  France  directly  under  the  king's  government. 
Tlie  domain  was  enlarged  when,  for  any  reason,  one  of 
the  great  nobles,  a  count  or  a  duke,  had  given  up  his  ter- 
ritory to  the  king,  so  that  there  was  no  longer  standing 
between  the  rear  vassals  and  the  king  a  great  lord  who 
held  the  territory  as  his  own  little  principality,  more  or 
less  completel}^  closed  against  the  royal  interference,  but 
the  king  had  taken  his  place,  and  the  small  nobles  of  the 
territory  were  brought  into  immediate  dependence  upon 
him,  and  he  had  now  possession  both  of  the  rights  of 
the  old  count  or  duke,  and  also  of  the  more  extensive 
rights  of  the  national  sovereign,  which  might  at  last  be 
exercised.  Sometimes,  also,  the  kings  got  possession  of 
rear  fiefs  before  the  county  or  duchy  was  finally  ab- 
sorbed, and  in  both  these  ways,  though  mainly  by  the 
first,  the  new  kingdom  of  France  was  forming  and  the 
royal  power  of  the  Capetian  family  was  extending  itself 
over  the  national  territory  by  the  disappearance  of  the 
great  nobles  who  had  been  its  peers  at  the  beginning  of 
its  history. 

The  long  reign  of  Philip  Augustus  was  a  time  of  most 
rapid  progress  in  this  geographical  reconstruction  of 
France.  The  county  of  Artois,  the  king  secured  by  his 
man-iage  ;  the  counties  of  Yermandois  and  Amiens  soon 
after  as  the  result  of  a  disputed  succession.  These  ac- 
cessions greatly  enlarged  the  domain  toward  the  noi-th- 
east.  But  the  great  problem  was  to  recover  the  lands 
held  by  the  English,  and  at  this  Philip  labored  all  his 
life.     The  constant  quarrels  in  the  English  royal  family 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE         317 

— of  Henry  II.  with  liis  sous,  of  Ricliard  ami  Jolin,  of 
John  aucl  Arthur,  and  fiuall}'  between  John  and  the  Eng- 
lish barons — greatly  aided  his  efforts,  and  Philip  was  al- 
ways on  the  side  opposed  to  the  reigning  king.  Before 
the  reign  of  John  he  had  made  only  very  slight  gains, 
the  most  important  being  the  suzerainty  of  the  county  of 
Auvergne,  which  Henry  II.  had  been  forced,  just  before 
his  death,  to  transfer  to  Philip.  But  Philip's  abandon- 
ment of  the  third  crusade,  while  it  was  still  unfinished, 
and  his  return  to  France  to  take  advantage  of  the  ab- 
sence of  Richard  are  evidences  of  the  power  of  politi- 
cal motives  over  his  mind,  and  of  his  superior  realization 
of  the  duties  of  his  office,  as  compared  with  the  English 
king. 

Immediately  after  the  accession  of  John  came  the  op- 
portunity for  which  he  had  waited.  In  1200,  John  de- 
prived one  of  his  vassals,  the  eldest  sou  of  Hugues, 
Count  de  la  Marche,  of  his  pi-omised  bride  and  married 
her  himself.  The  count  took  arms  with  the  suj)port  of 
other  nobles  of  Poitou,  and  appealed  for  justice  to  John's 
suzerain.  King  Philip.  Philip  summoned  John  to  ap- 
pear before  his  feudal  court  and  make  answer.  "When 
the  court  met,  early  in  1202,  John  did  not  appear,  and 
sentence  was  pronounced  that  he  had  failed  to  meet  his 
feudal  obligations,  and  had  therefore  forfeited  all  the  fiefs 
Avhich  he  held  of  the  king  of  France. '  Philip  proceeded 
to  execute  the  sentence  immediately  by  force  of  arms. 
He  had  the  feudal  law  clearly  on  his  side.  John  further 
prejudiced  his  case  by  his  murder  of  Ai'thur  in  the  next 
year.  He  was  hampered  also  by  many  enemies,  and 
though  he  may  have  been  })hysically  brave  and  mentally 

'  The  researches  of  M.  Ch.  Bi'moiit— see  two  articles  in  the  Tleriie 
Jlisforif/ue,  Vol.  XXXII. — have  made  it  certain  that  the  condemnation 
of  John  was  thf  result  of  the  appeal  to  (he  king  by  the  nobles  of  Poitou, 
and  not  of  the  murder  of  Arthur,  as  formerly  supposed. 


318  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

able,  lie  was  morally  a  coward,  and  his  defence  against 
Philip's  attack  was  weak  in  the  extreme.  Speedily  all 
of  Normandy,  Maine,  Anjou,  and  Touraine,  and  parts  of 
Poitou  and  Saintouge,  were  in  Philip's  possession,  never 
to  be  recovered  as  fiefs  by  the  English.  The  great  vic- 
tory of  Bomdnes,  which  Philip  gained  in  1214,  over  the 
Emperor  Otto  IV.,  and  the  Count  of  Flanders,  allies  of 
John,  raised  the  prestige  of  the  king  to  its  highest  point, 
and  excited  a  popular  enthusiasm  which  may  almost  be 
called  national.  The  reign  of  Philip  Augustus  had  mul- 
tiplied the  area  of  the  royal  domain  by  three,  had 
strengthened  the  position  of  the  king  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  rivalry  or  even  successful  resistance  from  any 
single  noble,  and  had  given  it  the  sanction  of  uninter- 
rupted success. 

The  reign  of  his  son,  Louis  VIII.,  lasted  only  three 
years,  but  it  made  no  break  in  the  line  of  advance. 
More  territory  was  recovered  from  the  English,  inckiding 
the  important  city  of  La  Eochelle,  and  the  hold  of  the 
king  on  southeastern  France  was  strengthened. 

With  Louis  IX.,  St.  Louis,  we  have  another  long  reign, 
and  another  period  of  enormous  advance,  relatively  not 
so  great  in  ten-itory  as  that  under  Philip  Augustus,  but 
one  which  left  the  royal  power,  at  its  close,  institution- 
ally much  farther  along  on  the  road  to  absolutism. 

Louis  IX.  was  only  eleven  years  old  at  his  father's 
death,  but  his  mother,  Blanche  of  Castile,  who  assumed 
the  regency,  was  worthy  to  be  sovereign  in  the  Capetian 
line.  The  great  nobles,  however,  had  now  begun  to 
realize  to  what  end  events  were  carrying  them,  and  to 
see,  as  they  had  to  some  extent  before  this,  that  their 
oul}'  hope  of  resisting  the  polic}'  of  the  crown  Avas  to  be 
found  in  concerted  action.  They  consequently  took  ad- 
vantage of  Louis's  minority  to  form  combinations  among 
themselves  to  deprive  the  queen  of  the  regency,  and  in 


THE  FORMATION  OF  FRANCE         319 

intent,  to  check  tlie  advance  of  tlie  royal  power  by  arms. 
The  skill  of  the  queen-regent,  however,  defeated  all  their 
plans,  and  a  similar  result  attended  another  attempt  of 
the  sort  after  Louis  reached  his  majority.  All  these  un- 
successful effoits  in  the  end  really  aided  the  royal  cause. 
In  1259,  Louis  made  a  treaty  with  Heniy  III.,  of  Eng- 
land, by  which,  for  certain  small  fiefs  added  to  his  land 
in  the  southwest  of  France,  Henry  abandoned  all  claims 
to  Normandy,  Maine,  Anjou,  and  Poitou,  and  agreed  to 
hold  Guienne  as  a  fief  from  Louis.  A  treaty  of  the  year 
before  with  the  King  of  Aragon  had  made  a  similar  divis- 
ion of  disputed  lands  in  the  southeast.  Louis  also 
profited  by  the  results  of  the  bloody  extermination  of 
the  Albigenses  which  had  been  begun  in  the  reign  of 
Philip  Augustus.  The  attempt  of  Eaymond  VII.,  Count 
of  Toulouse,  to  better  his  condition  by  joining  one  of  the 
coalitions  of  nobles  against  the  king  had  resulted  in  his 
losing  some  of  his  lands  to  the  king,  and  he  was  obliged 
to  renew  his  consent  to  the  earlier  treaty,  by  which  the 
king's  brother,  Alfonso,  Count  of  Poitiers,  was  to  suc- 
ceed to  Toulouse  at  Raymond's  death.  This  happened 
in  1249.  In  the  year  after  Louis's  death  Alfonso  him- 
self died  without  heirs,  and  the  great  county  of  Toulouse 
was  joined  to  the  croA\Ti. 

To  ofi^set  somewhat  these  great  accessions  of  territory 
under  the  direct  control  of  the  king,  the  system  of  ap- 
panages must  be  noted,  begun,  in  a  large  way,  by  Louis 
VIII.  to  provide  for  his  younger  sons.  The  provinces, 
however,  ^^'hich  were  separated  by  this  arrangement  from 
the  domain  and  made  to  depend  feudally  upon  some 
prince  of  the  royal  house,  were  not  ceded  to  him  in  full 
sovereignty,  and  the  system  did  not  lead  to  the  forma- 
tion of  a  new  series  of  independent  principalities,  nor 
prove  as  dangerous  to  the  royal  authority  as  might  seem 
probable. 


320  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Louis's  son,  Philip  III.,  though  without  originality  of 
his  own  or  strength  of  character,  followed  faithfully  the 
example  set  by  his  father,  and  was  well  served  by  officers 
trained  in  that  school.  The  great  fiefs  of  Toulouse  and 
Champagne  were  added  to  the  domd,in,  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  royal  courts  enlarged,  the  development  of  a  su- 
preme court  advanced,  the  king's  authority  enforced  in 
the  great  fiefs  which  remained  in  every  way  possi- 
ble, the  independence  of  the  communes  weakened,  and 
quietly  and  without  exciting  open  opposition  the  royal 
authority  strengthened  in  all  directions.  The  growth  of 
a  strong  central  goverinnent  was  now  so  well  begun,  in 
other  words,  that  it  could  go  on  almost  of  itself  under  a 
sovereign  who  was  able  to  do  but  little  to  direct  the  pro- 
cess. 

The  regular  alternation  which  seems  curiously  enough 
to  prevail  in  the  Capetian  dynasty  during  most  of  the 
medieval  portion  of  its  history  brings  us,  with  the  acces- 
sion of  Philij)  IV.,  to  another  strong  king,  and  to  an 
epoch  of  almost  revolutionary  progress.  But  this  was 
almost  wholly  institutional.  From  this  time  on  to  the 
close  of  the  long  English  war,  no  great  accession  of  ter- 
ritory Avas  made,, though  many  small  ones-were,  like  the 
seizure  of  Lyons  by  Philip  IV.  France  was  now  almost 
constructed  geographically.  The  great  central  portion 
was  under  the  d.irect  government  of  the  kin^,  except 
so  far  as  the'  appanages  interfered  with  this.  Guienne, 
Brittany,  Burgmidy,  and  Flanders  were  the  only  great 
fiefs,  still  remaining  independent,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  Guienne,  they  remained  so  until  the  end  of  the  middle 
ages,  and.  the  most  of  Flanders  was  never  recovered. 
To  these  must  be  added,  to  complete  the  later  French 
territory,  Provence,  which,  though  not  a  fief  of  France, 
was  held  by  a  long  series  of  French  ]irinces  and  was 
finally  absorbed  by  France  under  Louis  XL 


THE   FORMATION    OF   FRANCE  321 

The  early  deatlis  of  the  three  sous  of  Philip  the  Fair, 
and  the  exclusion  of  their  daughters  from  the  succession 
hj  the  so-called  Salic  law,  make  a  natural  close  for  the 
first  period  of  Capetian  history.  "With  the  accession  of 
the  house  of  Yalois  the  Hundred  Years'  War  with  the 
English  begins. 

The  great  increase  of  territory  directly  subject  to  the 
control  of  the  king  during  the  period  which  closes  with 
the  death  of  Charles  IV.,  the  last  of  the  direct  line,  had 
necessitated  a  corresponding  development  of  the  institu- 
tional side  of  the  monarchy  to  provide  the  means  re- 
quired to  exercise  the  real  government  which  became 
more  and  more  possible.  The  reign  of  Philip  Augustus 
marked  an  epoch  in  this  direction,  as  it  did  in  the  geo- 
graphical extension  of  the  royal  power,  and  that  of  St. 
Louis  Avas  even  more  distinguished  for  institutional  than 
for  territorial  growth. 

The  problem  of  administration,  of  making  the  central 
power  effectively  felt  in  all  the  details  of  local  govern- 
ment throughout  the  domain,  was  the  earliest  which  de- 
manded solution.  The  older  administrative  agent,  the 
prevo/,  served  very  well  when  the  ^domain  was  small, 
but  was  inadequate  iH  the  changed  situation.  He  was 
wholly  feudal  in  character,  administered  a  very  small 
territory, .  and  was  not  well  under  control. 

In  the'  hailli  Philip  Augustus  developed  a  most  effec- 
tive agent  of  the  central  power.  Free  from  feudal  influ- 
ence, appointed  b}'  the  kiiig  and  entirel}'  dependent 
upon  him,  transferred  at  intervals  from  one  region  to 
another,  he  Avas  held  under  a  strict  control.  In  the 
district  to  which  he  was  appointed,  he  directly  repre- 
sented the  royal  authority  in  the  local  enforcement  of 
its  regulations  of  all  kinds,  anil  in  the  care  of  its  fiiian- 
cial  interests,  and  also  in  military  and  even  judicial  mut- 
ters, and  formed  a  close  bond  of  connection  between  the 
21 


:}22  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

central  government  and  every  locality.  Besides  tlie  spe- 
cial functions  of  this  new  officer,  he  had  the  general  duty 
of  looking  after  the  interests  of  the  king,  and  of  extend- 
ing his  power  and  domain  whenever  any  opportunity 
ollered.  In  this  direction  the  services  of  the  haillis  to 
the  crown  were  as  effective  as  in  their  strictly  official 
capacity,  and  not  infrequently  their  zeal  in  interfering 
with  the  local  nobility  to  the  king's  advantage  carried 
them  on  faster  and  farther  than  the  kings  thought  it  wise 
to  follow.  In  the  great  territories  afterward  added  to 
the  domain  in  the  south,  this  officer  was  known  as  the 
seneclial,  but  had  the  same  duties  with  some  diflferences 
of  detail.  The  supervision  of  the  central  government 
over  all  parts  of  the  state  was  carried  a  step  further  by 
St.  Louis  in  his  more  regular  employment  of  enqutteurs, 
officers  occasionally  used  before  and  corresponding  in 
duties  to  the  missi  of  Charlemagne.  Intended  to  over- 
see the  conduct  of  the  local  officers  and  to  insure  justice, 
they  became,  under  the  stronger  government  of  Philip 
the  Fair,  agents  of  royal  oppression  and  exaction. 

Probably  the  most  difficult  task  which  the  kings  had 
to  perform  in  creating  the  state  was  to  establish  national 
courts  superior  to  the  local  feudal  coui'ts,  and,  in  connec- 
tion with  them,  to  enforce  peace  and  good  order— an 
orderly  and  judicial  settlement  of  disputes  instead  of 
an  appeal  to  force.  The  minute  regulations  with  which 
the  feud;d  law  itself,  as  it  began  to  be  formed,  had  sui'- 
rounded  the  practice  of  private  war,  mimicking  on  a  small 
scale  the  provisions  of  international  law  and  even  more 
formal  in  character,  are  the  evidences  of  an  attempt  on 
the  part  of  feudalism  itself  to  escape  from  some  of  the 
worst  evils  of  unchecked  license.  The  Truce  of  God 
was- able  to  aid  in  this  direction  during  a  time  when  the 
church  was  the  only  general  power  capable  of  enforcing 
the  requirements  of  such  a  truce.     But  it  was  not  possi- 


THE   FORMATION   OF   FRANCE  323 

ble  for  the  evil  to  be  entii'ely  done  away  with,  and  good 
order  to  be  really  maintained,  until  the  general  causes, 
whose  operation  we  noticed  in  the  last  chapter,  had  fin- 
ally transformed  society  and  created  so  strong  a  demand 
for  security  as  to  give  the  central  government  such  effec- 
tive support  as  would  enable  it  to  enforce  obedience  to 
the  law.  This  transformation  of  society  was  by  no 
means  complete  in  the  last  half  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, but  it  had  advanced  so  far  that  its  influence  can  be 
distinctly  seen,  and  the  operation  of  the  royal  courts  may 
begin  to  be  called  national. 

The  original  court  of  the  king,  the  curia  regis,  was  an 
assembly  of  court  officials,  vassals,  and  magnates  subject 
to  the  king,  which  met  at  short  intervals,  at  his  sum- 
mons, to  perform  a  great  variety  of  functions — ^judicial, 
advisory,  and  semi-legislative — functions  which  were  to  be 
performed  after  a  time,  mth  the  increasing  complexity 
of  government,  by  separate  -bodies  differentiated  from 
this  original  coui*t.  Under  the  early  Capetian  kings  the 
portion  of  France  under  its  actual  jurisdiction  was  very 
small,  and  its  means  of  enforcing  any  decree  were  very 
limited.  In  the  period  which  follows,  down  to  the  reign 
of  St.  Louis,  the  wider  extension  of  the  royal  power  af- 
fected the  court  in  two  directions.  In  one  there  is  to  be 
seen  a  constantly  increasing  respect  paid  to  the  court  on 
the  part  of  the  feudal  lords,  and  a  growing  tendency  to 
submit  to  its  decrees,  a  tendency  which,  though  not  by 
any  means  universal  as  yet,  was  marked  enough  to  be 
a  sure  sign  of  the  increasing  respect  paid  to  the  king. 
In  another  direction,  in  the  court  itself,  there  is  evident 
the  gradual  formation  from  its  members  of  a  small  body, 
constantly  present  and  especially  devoted  to  the  study  of 
the  law — a  result  which  followed  naturally  from  the  in- 
creasing business  of  the  court. 

This  latter  fact  is  the  first  indication  of  the  uert  im- 


324  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

portaut  advance.  From  the  reign  of  St.  Louis  the  judi- 
cial l)usincss  of  the  court  was  regularly  in  the  hands  of  a 
permanent  body  of  specially  trained  men,  selected  by  the 
king,  and  this  body  now  began  to  be  called  the  Pm-le- 
vunt.  The  lords  and  high  clergy  still  attended  occasion- 
ally, when  esiDecially  summoned,  in  cases  which  particu- 
larly concerned  their  own  interests,  but  the  supreme 
court  of  the  kingdom  had  now  been  separated  from  the 
earlier  general  body,  the  cicria  regis,  and  had  begun  its 
separate  development. 

Along  with  this  evolution  of  the  supreme  court  there 
went  also  a  great  increase  of  respect  and  of  business  in  the 
case  of  the  subordinate  national  courts,  those  held  by  the 
prevufs  and  the  haillis.  There  are,  also,  two  other  facts  to 
be  noticed  in  the  same  connection,  as  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance in  the  national  centralization.  One  is  the  intro- 
duction of  a  system  of  appeals,  and  the  other,  the  revived 
study  of  the  Roman  law. 

The  develoijment  of  a  series  of  royal  courts  might 
serve  a  good  purpose  in  centralizing  the  domain,  even  if 
their  action  were  confined  to  that,  but  would  be  of  little 
use  in  binding  all  France  together,  if  the  feudal  courts  of 
the  great  fiefs,  which  were  still  left,  remained  supreme  and 
independent.  Under  St.  Louis  and  his  son,  the  right  of 
appeal,  which  had  existed  before  in  some  parts  of  the 
kingdom,  was  definitely  established  for  all  France — the 
right  of  appeal  to  the  royal  courts,  local  and  supreme, 
from  all  feudal  courts  of  Avhatever  grade,  including  those 
of  the  greatest  and  most  independent  lords,  like  the  king 
of  England  in  his  capacity  as  duke  of  Guienne,' 

'  Tlie  supreme  feudal  courts  in  some  of  the  great  fiefs,  as  in  Nor- 
mandy, Champagne,  and  Toulouse,  were  allowed  to  continue,  their 
judges,  under  the  new  arrangement,  being  members  of  the  Parlement 
of  Paris  sent  for  tlie  pur]iose  ;  but  thev  continued  not  as  independent 
courts,  but  as  provincial  parlements,  clearly  incorporated  in  the 
national  judiciary  system. 


THE   FORMATION   OF   FRANCE  325 

That  tlie  establishment  of  this  right  of  appeal  from 
themselves  to  the  king  revolntiouizecl  the  whole  situation 
and  involved  in  reality  the  total  destruction  of  their  polit- 
ical independence,  the  barons  do  not  seem  to  have  clearly 
perceived  ;  but  that  they  certainly  resisted  this  advance  of 
the  royal  power  with  some  determination  is  evident  from 
the  numerous  ordinances  which  were  made  in  the  follow- 
ing period  against  the  means  they  were  employing  to 
maintain  the  independence  of  their  courts.  But  their 
jiower  of  resistance  was  greatly  undermined  by  the 
theory  of  the  kingship,  which  had  always  existed  in  the 
feudal  law,  and  which  was  now  greatly  developed  under 
the  influence  of  the  Roman  law.  If  the  king  was  consid- 
ered to  be  the  supreme  source  of  law  and  justice,  and  if 
the  right  of  the  baron  to  hold  a  court  was  only  a  dele- 
gated right,  then  there  was  no  ground  on  which  an  ap- 
peal to  the  royal  courts  could  be  denied. 

It  was  in  the  thirteenth  century,  especially  in  its  latter 
half,  that  the  revived  study  of  the  Roman  law  began  to 
have  a  decided  practical  influence  upou  the  formation  of 
the  modern  state  and  modern  law.  We  cannot  enter 
here  into  the  special  influence  which  it  had  in  the  field 
of  law  itself,  less  decisive  in  France  than  in  Germany, 
but  far  more  extensive  everywhere  on  the  continent  tlian 
in  England.  It  is  its  influence  upon  institutions  and  the 
development  of  government  which  we  must  regard. 

The  channel  through  which  the  principles  of  the  Ro- 
man law  were  brought  at  this  time  into  an  immediate 
influence  upon  the  institutional  side  of  the  national 
growth,  was  the  position  obtained  by  the  professional 
body  of  trained  laAvycrs,  now  beginning  to  be  formed. 
These  men  were  soon  employed  as  judges  in  the  subor- 
dinate courts,  and  gradually  made  their  way  into  the 
Parlemont  itself,  and  thus  that  body  b(^came  iiion^  and 
more  separated  as  a  permanent  institution  exercising  the 


326  MEDIEVAL  .CIVILIZATION 

judicial  functions  of   the  mria  regis  practically  alone.  > 
And  along  another  line  also  the  same  connection  of  the 
Eoman  law  with  the  state  was  made  through  the  influ- 
ence of  the  lawyers  in  the  other  body  which  was  just  now 
forming  from  the  curia  regis,  tlie  Estates  General. 

It  was  by  infusing  its  spirit  into  the  progress  which 
had  begun,  and  directing  it  to  certain  ideals,  rather  than 
as  a  source  of  actual  institutions  that  the  .Roman  law 
affected  the  residt.  It  was  the  law  of  a  thoroughly  cen- 
tralized state.  "Its  spirit  Avas  that  of  a  complete  absolu- 
tism. All  its  principles  and  maxims  looked  to  the  king 
as  tlie  centre  and  soiu'ce  of  tlie  whole  institutional  life  of 
the  state.  The  supreme  right  to  judge,  to  administer,  to 
lelgislate,  and  to  tax  was  possessed  by  the  sovereign. 
This  Avas  the  theory  of  the  state  which  the  lawyers  were 
di'a\ving  from  the  Boman  law  everywhere,  even,  to  some 
extent  at  least,  in  England.  As  the  practical  manage- 
ment of  public  affttii's  of  all  sorts  passed  more  and  more 
into  the  hands  of  men  trained  in  these  ideas,  and  as  the 
Roman  laAV  gradually  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  con- 
trolling law  in  all  new  cases,  the  actual  facts  were  made 
to  conform  more  and  more  exactly  to  •  the  theory.  This 
new  influence  was,  thus,  a  tremendous  reinforcement  to 
the  primitive  theory  of  the  kingship  which  had  come 
down  to  the  Capetians  from  the  earlier  dynasties  and 
which  had  lived  through  the  age  of  feudal  disintegration, 
a  theory  which  had  been  itself  formed  after  the  conquest 
very  largely  on  the  Roman  model.  But  it  must  lie  re- 
membered that  it  was  not  now  mere  theory.  The  influ- 
ence exerted  upon  the  growth  of  the  state  was  far  more 
decisive  than  that  of  any  mere  theory  could  have  been, 
for  it  was  the  controlling  ideal  of  the  men  who  Avere 
most  active  in  shaping  the  new  institutions.^     A  recent 

'  Two'points  may  be  emphasized  in  connection  with  tliis  discussion  of 
French  judicial  institutions,  as  facts  of  the  utmost  importance  in  ac- 


THE   FORMATION   OF    FRANCE  327 

writer  has  said  of  this  influence  :  "It  was  this  more  than 
all  other  causes  combined  which  effected  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  feudal  medieval  sovereignty  into  the  abso- 
lute monarchies  of  the  seventeenth  century,"  ^  and  one 
feels  hardly  justified  in  calling  the  statement  an  exaggera- 
tion. 

During  the  last  part  of  this  period  three  other  insti- 
tutions of  great  importance  began  their  growth,  thoiigh 
their  great  development  was  to  lie  in  the  time  of  the 
English  war  which  followed.  These  were  the  standing 
army,  the  system  of  national  taxation,  and  the  Estates 
General. 

With  the  enlargement  of  the  domain,  and  the  more 
important  and  more  distant  wars  which  followed,  the 
feudal  levies  and  tll€^  older  general  levy  proved  them- 
selves insufficient  and  less  to  be  depended  upon  than  in 
earlier  times.  Before  the  reign  of  Philip  Augustus  there 
are  instances  of  the  employment  of  paid  soldiers,  and 
their  use  constantly  increased.  With  their  employment, 
and  the  other  increasing  expenses  of  the  state,  the  nec^- 
sity  arose  for  a  larger  income  than  the  feudal  revenues 
supplied.    Some  points  connected  with  the  origin  of  gen- 

counting  for  the  different  results  in  France  and  England.  One  of  them 
is  this,  that  a  national  system  of  law  and  national  courts  had  never  dis- 
appeared in  England  as  completely  as  they  had  in  France.  Thej*  did 
not  have  to  be  reconstructed  almost  fie  novo  under  the  influence  of  any 
theories,  and  it  was  not  true  of  England,  as  it  was  of  France,  that  the 
confused  and  contradictory  customary  law  was  totally  unfit  to  grow  into 
a  general  national  law  with  the  rapidity  necessai-y  to  keep  pace  with 
geographical  extension  of  the  royal  power.  The  other  fact  is  that 
France  did  not  have  so  complete  a  system  of  local  self-government  a.s 
England,  a  system  based  upon  different  ideas  from  those  of  the  Roman 
law,  and  able  to  train  individual  men  for  the  public  service  and  the 
whole  nation  in  the  exercise  of  liberty.  This  fact  was,  however,  of 
more  decisive  influence  in  the  later  stages  of  French  history  than  at  the 
point  we  have  now  reached. 

I  The  New  York  Nation,  Vol.  XL.,  p.  487. 


328  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

eral  taxation  are  not  clear,  but  the  first  steps  toward  it 
seem  to  have  been  taken  in  the  introdnctioii,  under 
Philip  Augustus,  of  a  money  composition  for  military 
service  not  performed.  During  the  English  Avars  the 
method  of  this  tax  changed  somewhat.  The  kings  of 
that  time  were  not  always  in  a  position  to  maintain  all 
that  their  predecessors  had  gained,  and  the  Estates  Gen- 
eral attempted  to  compel  a  recognition  of  their  right  to 
grant  a  tax  before  it  could  be  legally  collected,  but  with- 
out final  success.  The  right  of  the  king  to  impose  taxes 
was  in  the  end  recognized.  It  was  not  until  the  close  of 
the  Hundred  Years'  War,  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  that  these  two  things  were  definitely  established, 
a  regularly  organized  standing  army,  and  an  equally  well 
organized  and  permanent  system  of  taxation,  imiiosed 
by  the  king  and  collected  throughout  the  kingdom  by 
his  agents.  It  can  be  seeii^  at  once  that-  when  this  point 
was  reached  the  central  government  was  independent 
of  the  feudal  system.  It  had  recovered  from  its  vassals 
two  of  its  most  important  functions,  the  loss  of  which  in 
the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  had  forced  it  to  submit  to 
the  feudal  regime.  The  failure  of  the  Estates  General  to 
make  good  their  claim  to  vot(3  the  taxes  had  rendered 
the  crown  independent  also  of  .the  people,  and  with  its 
assumption,  in  addition  of  the  right  of  legislation,  it  bo- 
came  the  only  factor  in  the  government.  The  absolute 
monarch}'  was  complete. 

The  institutions  which  we  haVe  been  considering  up 
to  this  point  are  all  institutions  of  centralization.  Their 
tendency  was  to  increase  very  greatly  the  power  of  the 
king,  to  undermine  all  forms  of  local  independence,  and 
to  bring  the  control  of  public  matters  of  every  kind 
more  and  more  completely  into  the  king's  hands.  Now 
we  come  to  the  beginning  of  ,an  institution  which  con- 
tained within  itself  a  possibility  of   most  serious  dan- 


THE   FOKMATIO??   OF   FRANCE  329 

ger  for  this  growing  absolutism.  It  is  tlie  Estates  Gen- 
eral— States  General — the  appearance,  or  reappearance, 
of  a  public  assembly  having  legislative  functions. 

Leaving  one  side  the  uncertain  and  not  yet  sufficient- 
ly investigated  question  as  to  the  exact  character  of  the 
earlier  institution  into  which  the  representatives  of  the 
cities  were  now  admitted,  it  is  clear  that  in  all  the  states 
of  Europe  there  was  sudf  an  institution  alread}'  in  ex- 
istence. The  king's  vassals  and  the  magnates  of  the 
realm,  lay  and  ecclesiastical,  came  together  at  his  sum- 
mons—the clergy  meeting  sometimes,  though  by  no  means 
frequently,  by  themselves — to  perform  a  variety  of  func- 
tions as  occasion  demanded,"  sometimes  judicial— and 
this  whether  the  curia  regis  was  a  different  body  or  not 
— to  decide  cases  that  arose  under  the  feudal  law,  and 
to  determine  what  customs  should  be  recognized  as  hav- 
ing the'  force  of  law,  or  to  give  advice  in  new  cases. 
These  last  were  acts  which  would  correspond  most 
nearly  to  legislation  of  anything  during  the  feudal  pe- 
riod, when  real  legislation  seems  to  have  been  wholly 
wanting,  except  in  so  far  as  that  name  may  be  given  to 
the  royal  edicts  which  were  occasionally  issued.  Into 
this  body,  representatives  of  the  Third  Estate  were  now 
admitted,  in  all  the  leading  countries  of  Europe,  and  it 
gradually  assumed  a  more  clefiuite  organization  and 
clearer  legislative  functions.  Erance  was  the  last  of  the 
larger  states  to  take  this  step,  the  Spanish  states  of 
Aragon  and  Castile  were  -the  first,  soon  after  the  mid- 
dle of  the  twelfth  centmy  ;  Sicih'  followed  in  1232,  Ger- 
many in  1255,  England  in  1205^  and  France  in  1302.  In- 
stances of  the  appearance  of  representatives  of  the  towns 
in  the  earlier  body  may  be  found  in  some  cases  before, 
but  the  definite  beginning  of  the  ncAv  institution  was  at 
the  dates  given. 

The  special  occasion  Avliich  led  to  the  creation  of  this 


330  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

new  iustitution  is  itself  significant  of  the  progress  wliicli 
the  royal  authority  had  made.  One  of  the  most  impor- 
tant resoiu'ces  of  the  early  Capetians  had  been  the  wealth 
of  the  church.  But  they  had  drawn  from  this  som-ce,  in 
the  way  of  a  general  levy  on  the  revenues  of  ecclesiastics, 
only  with  the  consent  of  the  pope,  granted  in  each  case 
for  some  object  of  which  the  pope  approved.  Now 
Philip  the  Fau*  felt  himself  strong  enough  to  dispense 
with  this  consent,  and  to  demand  that  the  clergy  should 
be  subject,  Hke  other  classes,  to  the  state's  rapidly  form- 
ing tax  system.  The  pope  took  up  at  once  the  defence 
of  his  rights,  and  the  conflict,  begun  on  the  question  of 
taxation,  rapidly  involved  a  great  variety  of  points  con- 
cerning the  position  of  virtual  political  independence 
within  the  state,  which  the  church  asserted  for  itself. 
Upon  some  one  or  other  of  these  points  all  the  strong 
Capetian  kings — Louis  TI.,  Philip  Augustus,  and  St. 
Louis — had  come  into  collision  with  the  papacy.  Now 
the  state  was  so  nearly  centralized  that  the  war  was 
waged  on  all  these  issues  at  once,  and  seemed  to  involve 
the  whole  relation  of  the  church  to  the  state. 

It  was  most  likely  for  its  general  effect  to  make  an 
imposing  display  of  the  fact  that  the  whole  nation  was 
behind  him  in  this  conflict,  or  at  least  that  he  controlled 
the  nation,  that  Philip  called  together  the  first  Estates 
General  in  1302.^  Li  doing  this,  he  gave  it  a  really 
representative  character,  and  a  definiteness  of  composition 

'  It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that,  in  taking  this  step,  Philip  was 
consciously  following  the  example  set  by  Edward  I.  of  England,  a 
year  or  two  before,  in  his  contest  with  Boniface  VIII.  over  the  feudal 
relationship  of  Scotland.  The  evidence  is  clear  that  Philip  was  familiar 
with  these  events  in  England,  and  the  idea  is  an  interesting  one  that  the 
suggestion  of  the  French  Estates  General  may  have  come  from  the  Eng- 
lish Parliament.  Whatever  may  be  true  as  to  this  particular  occasion, 
however,  the  Estates  General  would  certainly  have  been  formed  before 
many  years. 


THE   FORMATION   OF   FRANCE  331 

which  made  it  a  new  institution.  The  members  of  the 
fii'st  two  estates,  the  clergy  and  the  nobles,  were  sum- 
moned personally  and  attended  in  person  or  bv  proxy. 
The  towns  of  the  whole  kingdom,  summoned  through  the 
haiJlis,  elected  representatives  to  form  the  Third  Estate. 
It  was  the  power  of  money  which  had  raised  the  Thuxl 
Estate  to  a  position  in  the  commimity  somewhere  near 
the  other  two.  It  was  not  to  obtain  theii-  consent  to  a 
tax,  however,  that  representatives  of  the  Third  Estate 
had  been  summoned  to  the  Estates  General.  The  imme- 
diate object  was  to  obtain  the  support  of  aU  orders  for 
the  king's  general  policy.  It  was  not  very  long,  how- 
ever, before  the  kings  showed  themselves  disposed  to 
submit  the  question  of  taxation  to  the  sanction  of  the 
Estates,  in  order  that  "the  collection  of  it  might  be  easier. 
In  doing  this,  the  kings  put  into  their  hands  an  extremely 
dangerous  weapon  against  themselves,  if  the  Estates 
General  had  been  able  to  use  it.  It  was  not  entirely  their 
fault  that  they  were  not.  The  fact  that  this  assembly 
Avas  at  first  only  an  advisory  body,  and  had  no  power  of 
independent  action,  that  the  rights  of  legislation  and 
of  taxation  were  practically  in  the  hands  of  the  king,  was 
a  most  serious  obstacle  to  the  formation  of  a  constitu- 
tional monarchy,  but  not  an  absolutely  fatal  one.  The 
Estates  General  still  had  within  itself  the  possibilities  of 
the  English  Parliament.  If  it  could  have  obtained  a  solid 
popular  support  and  a  leadership  that  would  have  com- 
manded general  respect,  if  there  had  been  throughout 
France  a  general  experience  and  midei-standing  of  self- 
government  as  a  reserve  fund  upon  which  it  could  have 
draAvn,  it  might  have  gained  all  that  was  gained  in  the 
sister  kingdom.     It  was  the  lack  of  these  that  was  fatal. 

The    epoch    of   rapid    geogi"aphical   and   institutional 
growth  under  the  Capetian  kings  of  the  dii'ect  line  was 


332  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

succeeded  by  a  long  period  of  confusion  and  disaster,  in 
wliicli  the  national  development  in  both  these  directions 
almost  entirely  ceased.  Soon  after  the  accession  of 
Philip  VI.,  the  first  king  of  the  house  of  Yalois,  the  Hun- 
dred Years'  AVar  with  England  began.  In  its  real  mean- 
ing it  was  a  straggle  over  the  last  English  possessions 
in  France.  Philip  YI.  had  immediately  taken  up  the  old 
policy  of  weakening  the  English  hold  on  Guienne  by 
intrigue  and  by  every  other  means  at  hand,  and  Edward 
HI.  was  not  slow  to  defend  himself.  It  was  a  result, 
however,  of  the  more  truly  national  character  which  both 
states  had  now  assumed,  that  the  war  involved  wider 
issues  than  in  its  earlier  stages — the  question  of  the 
supremacy  of  England  over  Scotland,  and  of  France  over 
Flanders,  and  finally  for  a  time  the  dangerous  possibil- 
ity— dangerous  alike  for  England  and  for  France — that 
the  English  king  might  actually  make  good  that  claim  to 
the  throne  of  France  which  had  been  advanced ,  at  first 
mainly  as  a  Avar  measure. 

The  Hundred  Years'  War  opened  with  a  series  of 
disasters  for  the  French,  and  of  great  victories  for  the 
English,  against  overwhelming  odds,  which  are  in  them- 
selves suggestive  of  the  difierence  between  the  two 
nations.  The  French  armies,  still  composed  chiefly  of 
nobles,  their  contempt  for  the  foot-soldier  increased  by 
decisive  victories  over  the  Flemings  recently  gained, 
were  filled  with  over-confidence  in  the  face"  of  English 
armies  which  seemed  to  be  composed  almost  wholly  of 
footmen.  But  the  English  foot-soldiers  were  diflerent 
men  from  any  that  the  French  had  met  before.  They 
had  a  sturdy  seK-reliance,  and  a  feeling  that  they  were  a 
match  for  their  noble  enemies  which  were  the  outgrowth 
of  their  history,  recent  as  well  as  ancient — of  a  long  past 
which  the  French  had  once  shared  with  them,  but  with 
which,  in  their  military  system  as  in  other  things,  the 


THE   FORMATION    OF    FRANCE  '3o3 

French  had  broken  much  more  completely  than  the  Eng- 
lish, The  result  was  the  battles  of  Crecy  and  of  Poi- 
tiers and  the  anarchy  which  followed  in  France. 

The  king  was  a  prisoner  in  England  ;  the  dauphin 
was  young  and  had  not  yet  begun  to  display  the  capac- 
ity for  government  which  he  showed  as  king  ;  the  near- 
est prince  of  the  blood,  Charles  of  Navarre,  was  a  self- 
ish schemer  ;  and  a  feeling  had  arisen  that  the  king  and 
the  nobles  had  proved  themselves  unlit  to  deal  Avith  the 
situation.  There  was  an  opportunity  for  the  Estates 
General  to  seize  upon  the  control  of  afiairs,  and  to  begin 
the  formation  of  a  constitution  which  the  leaders  of  the 
Third  Estate  quickly  recognized. 

The  demands  which  the  circumstances  enabled  them 
to  make,  some  of  which  were  granted  them  for  the  time 
being,  were  closely  like  the  most  imi)ortant  principles 
which  were  being  slowly  expressed  in  the  English  con- 
stitution. They  demanded  the  right  to  vote  the.  taxes 
and  to  control  their  expenditure,  that  the  king's  minis- 
ters should  be  held  responsible  to  the  law,  that  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice  should  be  without  favor  or  brib- 
ery, and  that  they  should  have  the  right  to  select  certain 
members  of  the  king's  council,  and,  also,  the  concession 
of  periodical  meetings  for  the  Estates  General,  and  these 
demands  were  put  somewhat  after  the  English  fashion 
in  the  form  of  conditions  attached  to  grants  of  money. 

If  these  points  had  been  permanently  established  in 
the  French  constitution,  it  would  have  been  the  sudden 
creation  of  a  limited  monarchy,  the  introduction  in  a 
single  decade  of  overpowering  restraints  upon  the  king, 
with  no  history  of  stead}'  growth  behind  them.  The 
whole  history  of  France  had  been  tending  in  the  oppo- 
site direction,  and  in  this  fact  was  the  great  weakness 
of  such  an  attempt  at  revolution,  and  the  main  cause  of 
its  failure.     It  had  no  strong  leadership,  and  it  hud  no 


334  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

general  popular  support.  The  career  of  Etienne  Marcel 
is  extremely  interesting,  but  it  was  not  without  its  dem- 
agogic features.  The  nobles  lent  no  support  to  the  at- 
tempt, and  the  whole  of  French  history  did  not  produce 
a  leader  from  the  middle  class  like  Stephen  Langton,  or 
one  from  the  nobles  like  Simon  de  Montfort.  The  Paris 
mob  also  had,  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  too 
great  an  influence  on  the  course  of  events,  and  exhibited 
at  that  early  date  the  characteristic  features  and  fatal  re- 
sults which  have  appeared  in  almqst  every  century  since, 
and  which  are  so  familiar  to  us  in  the  history  of  the 
French  Revolution  and  of- the  Commune.  This  attempt 
to  form  a  limfted  monarchy,  and  the  similar  one  which 
circumstances  again  allowed  in  1413,  met  with  no  final 
success,  and  the  growth  of  the  absolute  monarchy  went 
on,  delayed,  but  not  changed  in  character. 

With  the  next  king,  Charles  V.,  the  Wise,  a  strong  and 
skilful  king  again  succeeded  a  weak  one,  and  the  royal 
power  recovered  its  losses  and  made  new  progress.' 
When  he  had  well  prepared  for  it,  he  renewed  the  Eng- 
lish war,  which  had  been  closed  for  a  time  by  the  treaty 
of  Bretiguy,  and,  by  wisely  avoiding  pitched  battles,  he 
wearied  out  his  enemy  and  recovered  nearly  all  Guienne. 
He  enforced  the  right  of  appeal  to  the  national  courts, 
forbade  private  war,  enlarged  greatly  the  paid  army, 
avoided  meeting  the  Estates  General  and  strengthened 
the  king's  hold  upon  the  taxing  power,  and  made  further 
progress  in  getting  its  collection  into  the  hands  of  royal 
officers.  The  right  of  the  king  to  decree  a  new  tax  not 
consented  to  by  those  who  were  to  pay  it  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  yet  recognized ;  but  the  consent  was  ob- 
tained from  no  regular  body,  sometimes  from  assemblies 

'  See  the  interesting  article  by  M.  E.  Lavisse,  Etude  sur  le  Pouvoir 
Roynl  au  Temps  de  Charles  F.,  in  the  Revue  Historique,  Vol.  XXVI., 
p.  233. 


THE   FORMATION   OF   FRANCE  335 

approaching  in  character  to  the  Estates  General,  some- 
times from  provincial  estates,  sometimes  from  cities,  and 
when  once  granted  the  tax  was  collected  permanently 
without  a  new  grant,  and  was  even  increased  by  the  king 
Vvith  no  consent  asked,  and  in  this  way  France  was  grad- 
ually brought  to  regard  the  right  of  taxation  as  a  pre- 
rogative of  the  king's. 

After  Charles  V.  came  the  long  reign  of  the  weak  and 
insane  Charles  VI.,  filled  Avith  confusion  and  with  civil 
contests  between  the  utterly  selfish  princes  of  the  blood 
and  their  adherents,  and  closed  with  the  almost  fatal  tri- 
umph of  Henry  V.  of  England. 

His  son,  Charles  the  Victorious,  was  the  last  king  of 
France  whose  reign  can  be  said  to  have  been  wholly  in 
the  middle  ages  and  occupied  entirely  with  the  old  prob- 
lems. His  place  was  created  for  him  by  the  great  pop- 
ular movement  to  which  Joan  of  Arc  gave  leadership, 
and  which  reveals  to  us  in  the  clearest  light  the  depth  of 
the  national  feeling  which  had  now  come  into  existence 
in  France.  By  this  the  English  were  expelled,  to  be 
prevented  from  ever  retui-ning  by  their  own  civil  War  of 
the  Roses,  and  by  the  wholly  changed  international  con- 
ditions which  confronted  the  new  monarchy  of  the  Tudors 
at  the  close  of  that  war.  But  if  Charles  VII.  did  not 
make  his  own  place,  he  knew  how  to  occupy  it  when  it 
had  been  made  for  him.  The  finances  were  brought  into 
good  condition,  the  army  was  thoroughly  organized,  the 
state  made  independent  of  the  feudal  levies,  and  the  right 
of  the  king  to  impose  taxes  finally  established. 

The  nobles  did  not  allow  these  concluding  steps  in  the 
progress  to  absolutism  to  be  taken  without  protest  and 
combinations  to  prevent  them,  but  their  greatest  eflfort, 
under  the  lead  of  princes  of  the  royal  house,  was  made 
under  the  next  king,  Louis  XI.,  and  when  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  breaking  up  the  League  of  the  Public  Weal 


336  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  last  really  dangerous  resistance  to  tlie  royal  power 
^vas  overcome.  Louis  followed  tlie  same  policy  as  liis 
father,  and  at  the  close  of  his  reign  the  absolute  monarchy 
was  complete  in  all  essential  particulars.  A  last  trace  of 
institutional  check  upon  the  legislative  right  of  the  sov- 
ereign remained,  until. a  little  later,  in  the  power  of  the 
supreme  court — the  Parlement — to  reject  a  royal  edict  in 
Avhole  or  in  part— the  rights  of  registration  and  of  re- 
monstrance— and  a  few  other  finishing  touches  were  left 
to  be  made  by  Richelieu  and  Mazariu.  But  when  the 
king. had  gathered  into  his  hands  the  uncontrolled  right 
to  legislate,  to  tax,^  and  to  maintain  a  standing  army,  the 
process  of  centralization  w^s  finished;  and  the  kiug  was 
the  state  as  really  as  in  the  case  of  Louis  XIV. 

In  the  reign  of  Louis  XL,  also,  territorial  acquisitions 
were  begim  again,  the  duchy  of  Burgundy  was  seized  on 
the  death  of  Charles  the  Bold,  and  the  county  of  Pro- 
vence, which  la}',  not  in  France,  but  in  the  old  kingdom  of 
Burgundy,  was  annexed — a  partial  compensation  for  the 
loss  of  Flanders,  which  now  passed  to  the  House  of  Haps- 
burg.  In  the  next  reign  the  last  of  the  great  fiefs  ac- 
quired, Brittany,  was  brought  in  by  the  marriage  of 
Charles  VIII.  with  its  heiress. 

But  the  reign  of  Charles  VEIL  belongs  really  in 
modern  political  history.  The  ambition  of  the  now  com- 
pletely forpied  French  nation  and  of  its  sovereign  for 
foreign  conquests,  and  the  attempt  of  Charles  to  establish 
the  French  in  Italy,  are  its  leading  facts.  Louis  XL  had 
seen  the  rise  of  the  new  interests  and  the  beginning  of 
the  international  combinations  which  were  made  to  secui-e 

'  Philip  de  Comines,  writing  in  the  reign  of  Charles  VIII. ,  recognizes 
the  importance  of  this  point.  He  denies  tliat  the  king  has  any  right  of 
taxation  without  the  consent  of  those  who  pay,  and  says  that  England  is 
the  best  governed  of  the  countries  of  his  time.  See  especially  Bk.  V., 
Chap.  xix. 


THE   FORMATION   OF    FRANCE  387 

them,  but  he  was  still  so  occupied  with  the  old  problems 
that  he  had  not  been  able  to  take  a  part  in  the  game  at 
all  proportionate  to  the  strength  of  France.  Now  the  old 
problems  were  settled,  so  far  as  thej  need  be,  and  the 
new  interests  were  taking  their  place  to  direct  the  rojal 
policy. 

In  some  of  the  later  reigns  the  relics  of  the  feudal 
power  were  to  make  new  efforts  to  recover  the  position  in 
the  state  which  they  had  lost,  but  these  efforts  were  hope- 
less from  the  beginning,  and  feudalism  as  a  political 
power  disappeared  with  the  English  wars.  As  a  system 
of  social  rank  and  of  exclusive  legal  privileges  and  ex- 
emptions it  remained  until-the  French  Revolution.  The 
kings  had  carried  on  a  long  c(mtest  with  feudalism,  and 
had  finally  completely  overthrown  it,  but  they  were  not 
hostile  to  a  nobility,  and  freely  bestowed  upon  the  nobles 
pensions  and  titles  and  high  favor  at  court  as  some  com- 
pensation for  the  political  independence  which  had  been 
destroyed.' 

The  purpose  of  this  sketch  has  been  not  so  much  to 
give  an  outline  of  the  institutional  history  of  France 
during  these  centuries  as  to  make  evident,  if  possible, 
how  the  central  government  was  continually  growing  in 
strength  and  the  king  becoming  with  ev.ery  generation 
more  and  more  independent  of  the  feudal  nobles  and  the 
real  ruler  of  their  lauds. 

'  It  must  be  remarked,  also,  as  having  an  important  bearing  on 
modern  French  history,  that,  although  a  national  government  had  been 
established  and  a  national  feeling  created,  still  very  great  differences 
remained  between  the  various  provinces  in  law.  in  methods  of  legisla- 
tion, and  in  taxation,  as  reminders  of  their  original  feudal  separation. 
The  differences  between  the  pays  de  droit  coxitumier  and  tliepays  de  droit 
ecrit,  and  between  the  pays  d'ctats  and  the  pays  d'election  are  examples. 
The  existence  of  custom-houses  along  interior  provincial  boundary  lines 
seems  especially  foreign  to  the  modern  idea  of  a  state.  These  differences 
remained,  like  those  of  feudal  rank,  until  the  Revolution. 


338  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

It  has  been  given  so  much  more  in  detail  than  the 
history  of  the  other  states  will  be,  not  merely  because  of 
the  important  influence  of  the  absolutism  thus  formed 
upon  all  later  history,  but  also  because  it  is,  to  a  consid- 
erable extent,  typical  of  what  took  place,  sooner  or  later, 
almost  everywhere  upon  the  continent,  certainly  in  re- 
sults if  not  always  in  processes. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHEK   STATES^ 

Our  brief  sketch  of  English  history  before  the  Nor- 
man conquest  revealed  two  facts  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance in  their  bearing  npon  the  later  English  constitution. 
One  was  that  only  the  slightest  Roman  influence  had 
been  felt  by  the  Saxons,  the  other  that  the  feudal  system 
of  the  continent  had  obtained  no  footing  in- the  island. 
Then  followed  the  Norman  conquest,  in  appearance  the 
most  revolutionary  epoch  of  the  medieval  history  of  Eng- 
land. But  it  was,  in  truth,  less  revolutionary  than  it 
seems,  and  less  revolutionary  than  other  national  crises 
before  the  sixteenth  century. 

It  may  easily  be  made  to  seem,  as  it  has  been  by  some 
writers,  that  the  formation  of  the  characteristic  features 

'  Stubbs,  Constitutional  History  of  England,  3  vols.,  is  the  standard 
work  in  English  on  this  subject.  Taswell-Langraead,  Etn/lish  Coiutitu- 
tional  History ,  and  Taylor,  The  Origin  and  Growth  of  the  English  Consti- 
tution, are  the  best  single-volume  accounts.  Use  should  also  be  made 
of  the  translation  of  the  interesting  brief  sketch  by  Emile  Boutmy, 
77ie  English  Constitution.  Freeuiau's  books  are  full  of  interest,  l)ut  he 
is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  final  authority.  lie  is  undoubtedly  right  in 
the  majority  of  cases,  but  the  extreme  tenacity  with  which  he  held  ideas 
once  conceived,  his  disregard  of  the  investigations  of  others,  and  some- 
times the  incompleteness  of  the  material  at  his  command,  make  it  im- 
possible to  accept  his  conclusions  with  confidence  until  they  are  supported 
by  other  investigators.  Some  idea  of  the  original  sources  may  be  ob- 
tained from  the  series  of  little  books  entitled  English  History  by  Con- 
teinporary  Wriie7's,  and,  in  the  original,  from  Stubbs,  Select  Charters. 


340  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  the  Euglisli  constitutiou  is  a  process  dating  no  fiirtlier 
b;u'k  tlum  the  Xorman  conquest.  But  if  the  Euglisli 
people  had  not  had  the  Anglo-Saxon  past  behind  them, 
if  there  had  not  been  maintained  such  a  close  continuity 
of  national  hfe  in  spite  of  the  conquest,  the  final  residt 
would  have  been  very  different.  The  conquest,  and  the 
age  which  immediately  followed  it,  introduced  much  that 
was  new,  both  in  the  way  of  institutions  and  of  condi- 
tions, but  in  the  main  the  new  development  seized  upon 
institutions  or  tendencies  which  existed  in  the  old,  and 
produced  results  which  are  often  decidedly  unlike  the 
old,  but  which  are  still  in  harmony  with  its  spirit.  And 
this  must  have  been  so.  Aside  fi'om  feudalism,  which  is 
to  be  spoken  of  in  special,  the  law  and  institutions  which 
the  Normans  brought  ^nth  them  were  Frankish,  that  is, 
Teutonic  like  the  Saxon,  anel  Frankish  less  modified  in 
many  respects  than  the  contemporary  institutions  of 
other  parts  of  the  old  CaroHngian  empu-e.  The  question 
as  to  whether  a  given  institution  is  of  Xorman  or  of  Saxon 
origin  is,  for  om*  pui-pose,  of  little  importance.  In  either 
case,  the  ultimate  origin  is  Teutonic,  and  in  either  case 
the  value  of  the  institution  to  the  world  at  lai-ge  is  the 
value  given  to  it  by  Englishmen. 

The  conquest  brought  into  English  history  two  new 
factors  which  had  most  decided  influence  upon  the  fut- 
ure. Fu-st,  in  the  place  of  a  weak  king,  personally  weak 
and  almost  overshadowed  bv  one  or  two  cn-eat  noble  fam- 
ilies,  who  threatened  to  bring  about  some  of  the  results 
of  continental  feudalism,  it  put  a  strong  king,  strong  by 
the  fact  of  conquest  and  strong  in  character.  This  meant 
absolutism  in  the  actual  conduct  of  affairs,  but  for  the 
fundamental  institutions  of  Engknd  it  meant  very  little. 
The  body  of  the  Saxon  laws  remained  in  force  by  the 
choice  and  will  of  the  king.  It  was  a  centm-y  before  the 
centralization  which  began  ^vith  the  conquest  affected  in 


E:S■CTLA^^D    AN"D   THE   OTHER   STATES  341 

any  marked  degi'ee  local  institutions,  particularly  the 
sliire  courts. 

In  the  second  place,  tlie  conquest  introduced  the  feu- 
dal system  into  England ;  it  was  not,  however,  the  feudal 
system  of  France.  It  was  introduced  by  a  strong  king, 
not  because  he  thought  it  the  best  form  of  government — 
it  is  evident  from  the  precautions  he  took  that  he  did  not 
"think  that — but  because  it  furnished  the  only  method  of 
military  and  financial  administration  with  which  he  was 
familiar,  and,  though  he  P-iade  use  of  it  he  carefully 
guarded  against  its  most  dangerous  abuses,  by  making 
those  modifications  in  it  which  have  been  specified  in 
Chapter  "\T[II.  As  a  consequence  not  only  was  there  in 
England  no  great  baron  occupying  such  a  position  as 
the  duke  of  Normandy,  or  the  duke  of  Aquitaiue,  or 
even  the  count  of  Anjou  occupied  in  France,  but  also 
the  fact — which  gave  the  feudal  system  its  strong  hold 
upon  societ}'  on  the  continent — the  fact  that  it  took  the 
place  of  an  inefficient  national  government  and  exercised 
its  functions  never  existed  in  England,  and  the  conse- 
quences which  this  fact  produced  in  France  and  Ger- 
many never  appeared  there.  Only  for  a  brief  time,  un- 
der a  weak  and  insecure  king,  Stephen,  did  the  feudal 
lords  usurp  powers  of  the  general  government,  coining 
mone}^  and  taking  possession  of  the  coiu-ts,  and  give  the 
English  a  short  experience  of  conditions  familiar  to  their 
neighbors  on  the  mainland. 

Another  result  of  the  introduction  of  the  feudal  system 
was  to  create  a  more  definitely  organized  body  of  nobles 
than  had  existed  before,  no  one  of  whom  perhaps  equalled 
in  power  the  Godwin  family  of  Edward  the  Confessor's 
time,  but  who  were,  as  a  body,  stronger  than  the  body  of 
Saxon  nobles.  For  the  moment  this  fact  had  no  results. 
The  liarons  had  first  to  learn  a  lesson  foreign  to  their  class 
anywhere  else  in  the  world  of  that  time,  the  lesson  of  com- 


342  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

bination  with  one  another  and  with  the  middle  class,  be- 
fore they  could  begin  to  stand  successfully  against  the  su- 
perior might  of  the  king.  This  is  a  fact  of  great  signifi- 
cance in  relation  to  the  different  roads  taken  by  French 
and  English  history.  The  French  baron  was  so  placed 
that  he  could  hope  to  secure  independence,  and  natvirally 
this  was  the  object  which  he  sought.  This  led  him  into 
opposition  not  merely  to  the  government  but  also  to  others 
of  his  own  order  who  were  in  some  sense  his  rivals,  and 
consequently  combinations  among  the  barons  against  the 
king  are  less  common  in  French  history,  and  when  they 
occur  have  more  of  a  personal  and  less  of  a  public  char- 
acter. The  English  baron,  however,  having  no  hope  of 
establishing  by  himself  an  independent  principality, 
learned  to  seek  the  aid  of  others  against  the  power  of  the 
king,  and  as  he  w^as  successful,  went  on  gradually,  not  to 
independence,  but  to  an  increasing  share  in  the  general 
government  of  the  state,  the  form  which  a  reduction  of 
the  royal  power  necessarily  took  in  England. 

This  was  a  lesson,  however,  which  was  only  slowly 
learned.  Not  until  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  had  elapsed 
from  the  date  of  the  conquest  Avas  the  formation  of  the 
English  constitution  really  taken  in  hand.  The  Norman 
and  the  first  Angevin  kings  w^ere  to  all  intents  absolute 
monarchs.  Such  forms  of  a  more  popular  government  as 
continued  to  be  observed  furnished  no  real  check  upon 
their  action.  Taxation  was  practically  at  their  will. 
There  was  no  legislative  assembly  which  survived  aside 
from  their  feudal  court,  and  there  was  no  legislation 
except  their  own.  Lawyers  trained  in  the  Roman  law 
did  not  hesitate  to  declare,  here  as  on  the  continent,  that 
the  will  of  tlie  prince  was  valid  law.  Slight  signs  of  re- 
sistance had  not  been  wanting,  among  the  barons  of  re- 
sistance to  the  king's  absolute  power  over  them,  among 
the  people  on  account  of  oppressive  extortion  of  money, 


ENGLAND    AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  343 

as  under  Ricliard  I.  But  these  were  isolated  cases  and 
led  to  no  definite  results.  The  history  of  organized  and 
self-conscious  opposition  to  the  king,  embodying  its  re- 
sults in  constitutional  documents  to  which  clear  appeal 
co]dd  be  made  against  the  sovereign,  and  whose  enforce- 
ment marked  out  a  consistent  policy  from  generation  to 
generation — the  history,  in  other  Avords,  of  the  forma- 
tion of  the  constitutional  monarchy,  opened  in  the  reign 
of  king  John,  and  recorded  the  results  of  the  first  victory 
in  the  Magna  Charta. 

It  was  in  all  probability  nothing  more  than  the  selfish 
wish  of  the  barons  to  protect  themselves  agaiilst  the 
abuse  of  power  by  the  king,  and  to  gain  as  much  for 
themselves  as  they  could,  which  influenced  them  in  their 
rebellion  against  John.  They  did  not  have — it  would 
not  have  been  possible  for  them  to  have  had — any  such 
motive  before  them  as  was  before  the  leaders  of  the  re- 
sistance to  the  Stuarts  in  the  seventeenth  centmy,  nor  is 
it  likely  that  they  were  led  by  any  hereditary  influence 
from  the  spirit  or  practice  of  liberty  of  earlier  genera- 
tions. So  far  as  spirit  and  wish  of  theirs  are  concerned, 
they  would  have  preferred  the  results  which  Avere  sought 
by  the  barons  of  France  and  Germany,  and  Avould  have 
used  their  Adctory  to  reach  such  ends  if  circumstances 
had  not  made  them  impossible.  As  it  was,  they  found 
it  best  to  include  in  the  guarantees  demanfled  of  the 
king,  not  only  the  observance  of  their  feudal  rights,  but 
also  of  rights  afi'ecting  the  people  at  large  and  more 
directly  bearing  upon  popular  liberty.  Many  of  these 
guarantees  were  the  formulation  of  old  principles  and 
practices,  but  the  relation  of  the  Magna  Charta  to  the 
future  is  far  more  important  than  its  relatic^n  to  the  past. 
And  yet,  in  relation  to  the  future,  it  was  suggestion  and 
germ  rather  than  a  clear  concejition  even  of  important 
institutions  then  beginning  to  form. 


344  MEDIEVAL   CrVILIZATIOX 

•  According  to  the  prevalent  interpretation,  five  funda- 
mental principles  of  present   Anglo-Saxon   liberty   are 
contained  in  the  Magna  Charta.     These  are,  the  right  to 
trial  by  jury,  the  principle  of  the  Habeas  Corpus,  the  ille- 
gality of  taxes  not  consented  to  by  the  nation's  represen- 
tatives, fixed  places  of  meeting  for  the  courts  of  common 
pleas,  and  the  principle,  to  put  it  in  the  words  of  its 
latest  and  somewhat  more  general  formulation,  that  no 
person  shall  be   deprived  of  life,   liberty,   or  property 
without  due  process  of  law.     But  such  an  interpretation 
reads  into  the  document,  upon  some  of  these  points,  a 
meaning  derived  from  later  history,  and  yet,  in  one  sense, 
not  incorrectly.     In   studying  the  Magna  Charta  as  a 
historical  document,  it  is  necessary  to  have  regard  to 
what  its  provisions  meant  to  those  who  drew  them  up. 
But,  whatever  this  may  have  been,  it  does  not  exhaust 
the  meaning  of  the  Magna  Charta  as  an  influence  in  the 
growth  of  English  liberty.     It  was  not  many  generations 
before  the  progress  of  events  made  its  clauses  appear  to 
contain  a  meaning  foreign  to  the  minds  of  its  contempo- 
raries, and  when  this  occurred,  its  weighty-  sanction  was 
a  real  force  in  the  establishment  and  protection  of  the 
institutions  which,  it  was  believed,  had  been  intended. 
Trial  by  jury,  in  the  later  sense,  is  not  in  the  Magna 
Charta.     It  could  not  well  have  been  there,  for  the  jury 
was  then  only  just  beginning  to  be  formed,  and  had  not 
yet  reached  an  importance,  or  indeed  a  use,  which  would 
have  justified  its   insertion  in  a  document  of  this  sort. 
The  "  judgment  of  his  peers  "  referred  to  is  the  judgment 
by  the  community  of  freemen,  once  common  to  the  popu- 
lar courts  of  all  the  German  states,  and  from  them  pass- 
ing to  the  feudal  courts  everywhere.     The  words  used  in 
the  charter,  judicium  imritmi,  are  not  infrequent  in  the 
feudal  documents  of  the  continent.     And  'yet  the  "  judg- 
ment of  his  peers"  came  soon  to  mean  to  every  English- 


ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  346 

man  trial  by  juiy,  and  the  Magna  Charta  seemed  to  se- 
ciuc  to  him  that  right.  And  jnstly  so,  for  the  bearing  of 
the  practice  which  it  did  guarantee  upon  liberty  is  iden- 
tical with  that  of  the  jury  system,  which  took  its  place. 
So,, again,  in  the  matter  of  the  consent  to  taxation.  The 
practice,  in  its  later  form,  is  not  referred  to  in  the  Magna 
Charta,  either  in  the  matter  of  the  consent  or  of  the 
taxation.  The  reference  is  again  to  feudal  law,  to  the 
recognized  right  of  the  vassal  to  give  his  "consent  to  any 
extraordinary  "  aid,"  that  is,  to  any  aid  besides  the  three 
regular  ones  specified  in  the  charter,  before  he  could 
legally  be  compelled  to  pay  it.  But  here  again  the  prin- 
ciple is  involved,  and  later  ideas  extended  the  Magna 
Charta  to  cover  the  new  practice.  In  regard  to  the 
other  three  points  relating  to  the  administration  of  jus- 
tice, the  original  meaning  of  the  Magna  Charta  is  more 
closely  in  harmony  with  the  later  ideas,  though  put  in  a 
more  special  and  narrower  way.  In  general  the  Magna 
Charta  holds  rightly  the  great  place  Avhich  is  given  it  in 
the  history  of  civil  liberty.  It  gave  a  solemn  sanction 
and  a  definite  .statement,  to  w^hich  appeal  could  ever 
afterward  be  made,  to  certain  most  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  libei-ty,  much  wider  in  their  application  than  its 
framers  knew,  and  it  gave  dii'ection  toward  the  seeming 
of  national  rights  to  nearly  every  subsequent  case  of  in- 
surrection against  the  sovereign  in  English  history. 
-  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  follow  step  by  stej)  the  fa- 
miliar historical  events  which  were  associated  with  the 
growth  of  the  English  constitution.  It  will  answer  our 
purpose  if  we  can  obtain  an  idea  of  the  amount  of  prog- 
ress w^hich  had  been  made  by  the  close  of  the  middle 
ages  in  the  work  of  transforming  the  monarchy  of  AVill- 
iam  the  Conqueror  into  the  republic  of  to-day,  and  of  the 
institutional  forms  in  which  the  results  had  been  em- 
bodied; 


346  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  English  constitution  at  the  close  of  the  middle 
ages,  as  at  the  present  time,  comprised  two  distinct  kinds 
of  institutions,  each  essential  in  its  way  to  the  general 
result.  First  were  institutions  of  a  negative  character, 
intended  to  protect  the  individual  from  the  arbitrary  dis 
pleasure  of  the  executive.  Such  were  the  jury,  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Habeas  Corpus,  and  the  statutory  definitions 
of  treason.  The  second  were  institutions  which  may  be 
called  positive  in  character,  whose  object  was  to  "give  to 
the  representatives  of  the  nation  some  power  to  check 
the  public  actions  of  the  king  and  some  share  in  the 
operations  of  the  government.  Examples  of  these  are, 
impeachment  and  the  principle  that  the  consent  of  the 
House  of  Commons  is  necessary  to  the  validity  of  a  stat- 
ute. National  consent  to  taxation  is  a  matter  that  lies 
midway  between  the  two  and  partakes  of  the  nature  of 
both.  Demanded  at  first  as  a  protection  of  the  individ- 
ual against  the  executive,  and  always  ser%dng  that  end,  it 
became  also  the  most  eflective  means  of  securing  to  the 
nation  a  share  in  the  control  of  public  afi'airs.  Certainly 
civil  liberty  could  not  exist  at  all  -odthout  the  institutions 
of  the  first  class,  as  a  little  study  of  contemporary  Russia 
will  make  clear,  nor  could  any  great  progress  be  made 
toward  a  republican  constitution  without  those  of  the 
second. 

As  occupying  a  midway  position  between  the  two  kinds 
of  institutions  mentioned  above,  the  right  of  self-taxation 
is  first  to  be  considered.  The  most  obstinate  and  long- 
continued  struggle,  also,  of  this  period  of  English  his- 
tory was  over  this  right,  and  Englishmen  in  all  parts  of 
the  world  have  always  considered  it  the  most  fundamen- 
tal principle  of  their  constitution.  If  the  executive  can 
provide  a  large  enough  revenue  to  meet  his  needs,  inde- 
pendently of  the  nation,  he  is  independent  iu  everything 
else,  and  can  do  what  he  pleases.     This  struggle,  when 


ENGLAl^D   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  347 

looked  at  as  a  whole,  may  have  the  appearance  of  a  suc- 
cession of  special  cases  rather  than  of  the  following  of  a 
definite  purpose,  but  the  cases  are  as  fundamental  in  the 
ciUTent  of  historical  events  as  the  principle  is  in  the  con- 
stitution, and  both  sides  saw  what  was  involved  clearly 
enough  to  make  the  contest  obstinate  and  protracted. 

At  the  time  of  the  Magna  Charta,  taxation  had  just  en- 
tered the  transition  period  between  the  feudal  methods 
of  aids  and  tallages,  and  the  more  regular  methods  of 
modern  times.  Into  the  history  of  this  transition  we 
cannot  enter,  the  essential  fact  is  that  the  principle  of 
consent  was  an  extension  to  a  more  general  tax  of  the 
feudal  principle,  that  the  consent  of  the  vassal  must  be 
obtained  to  an  extraordinary  aid.  The  feudal  relation  was 
a  contract  with  definite  specifications.  Neither  party  to 
the  contract  had  any  right  to  enlarge  these  specifications 
to  his  advantage  without  the  consent  of  the  other,  and 
the  point  was  carefully  guarded  wherever  possible  in  a 
matter  of  such  importance  in  feudal  days  as  the  payment 
of  money.  AVhen  national  taxation  began  to  be  possible, 
toward  the  close  of  the  feudal  age,  its  introduction  was 
rendered  easier  by  the  application  to  it  of  this  feudal 
principle  ;  indeed  that  was  the  only  natural  thing  to  do, 
and  such  an  application  of  it  was  by  no  means  peculiar 
to  England.  That  which  was  peculiar  to  England  was 
that  it  became  the  great  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  peo- 
ple to  force  the  sovereign  to  grant  almost  everything 
else. 

It  was  the  financial  necessities  of  John's  son,  Henry 
III.,  which  forced  him  to  submit  to  the  plan  of  govern- 
ment embodied  b}'  the  barons  in  the  Provisions  of  Ox- 
ford, in  1258.  This  was  a  plan  for  the  conduct  of  aflairs 
by  committees  of  Parliament,  which  was  a  peculiar  fore- 
shadowing of  the  present  English  system,  but  which  was 
fortunately  premature ;   fortunately  because   no  middle 


348  MEDIEVAL   CIYILTZATIOlSr 

class  of  large  political  influence  had  at  that  time  been 
formed,  and  government  by  committees  of  Parliament,  if 
successfully  established,  would  have  ended  in  a  narrow 
oligarchy.  The  attempt  of  the  king  to  free  himself  from 
this  control  led  to  the  famous  struggle  with  Simon  de 
Moutfort,  and  to  the  Parliament  of  1265,  in  which  repre- 
sentatives from  the  boroughs  made  their  appearance  for 
the  first  time  with  the  knights  of  the  shire,  who  had  be- 
gun to  represent  the  counties  in  Parliament  in  the  reign 
of  John.  The  military  victory  of  the  king  over  the 
barons  was  complete,  but  it  was  followed  by  a  formal 
recognition  on  his  part  of  those  points  among  their  de- 
mands which  were  consistent  with  the  stage  of  constitu- 
tional growth  then  reached. 

Thirty  years  later  there  was  another  contest  betAveen 
the  king,  now  Edward  I.,  and  the  barons,  certainly  as 
factious  on  the  part  of  the  latter  as  any  in  the  series,  but 
involving  the  question  of  taxation,  and  closed  by  a  new 
and  full  agreement  by  the  king  to  observe  the  provisions 
of  the  great  charter.  This  agreement  was  now  so  explic- 
itly made  by  the  king,  there  had  been  so  many  precedents 
established  of  taxation  by  expressed  consent  that  the 
principle  may  be  said  to  be  finally  accepted  by  the  close 
of  the  reign  of  Edward  I.,  that  only  those  taxes  were 
legal  which  had  been  granted  by  the  nation.  Hereafter 
the  sovereign  might  attempt  to  escape  from  the  limita- 
tion placed  upon  liim  by  some  form  of  evasion,  but  when 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  question  he  necessarily  ad- 
mitted the  principle. 

Hardly  had  this  point  been  gained  when  Parliament 
advanced  another  step,  almost  as  important,  in  the  his- 
torical sequence.  In  1309  they  voted  a  tax  for  the  ben- 
efit of  King  Edward  IL,  on  the  condition  that  certain 
abuses,  which  they  specified,  should  be  reformed,  and 
the  king  was  obliged  to  consent.     This  precedent  was 


ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  349 

not  followed  for  a  generation,  bnt  the  long  war  with 
France,  which  began  about  1340,  made  the  sovereign 
more  dependent  than  ever  upon  the  grants  of  Parlia- 
ment and  the  practice  of  attaching  conditions  to  votes 
of  money  began  in  earnest.'  Edward  III.  was  compelled 
to  acknowledge  the  illegality  of  various  forms  of  taxation 
by  which  the  principle  of  consent  had  been  evaded,  or 
for  which,  in  earlier  times,  it  had  not  been  necessary. 
Under  Richard  II.  the  Parliament  began  to  ask  how  the 
money  granted  had  been  used,  and  to  specify  the  pur- 
poses to  which  it  should  be  applied.  Henry  IV.,  the 
first  Lancastrian,  held  the  throne  by  a  Parliamentary 
title,  and  he  allowed,  if  he  did  not  always  definitely  rec- 
ognize, the  right  of  Parliament  to  attach  conditions  to 
votes  of  taxes,  to  require  the  redress  of  abuses  before  the 
taxes  Mere  voted,  to  direct  the  use  to  be  made  of  the 
money,  and  to  require  an  account  of  it,  and  these  points 
were  still  further  secured  before  the  end  of  the  centmy. 
With  the  definite  establishment  of  these  rights  the  con- 
trol of  Parliament  over  taxation  was  complete.  It  was 
not  yet  complete  bej'ond  the  possibility  of  question  or 
evasion.  It  had  still  to  pass  through  the  Stuart  period 
before  that  point  was  reached.  But  in  the  legal  recogni- 
tion of  all  the  principles  involved  it  was  complete  before 
the  accession  of  the  House  of  Tudor. 

'  The  French  possessions  of  the  English  were  of  great  assistance  to 
tlie  growth  of  liberty  from  the  fact  that  they  involved  the  sovereigns  in 
affairs  on  the  continent  which  seemed  to  them  of  as  great,  and  some- 
times of  greater,  importance  than  those  of  their  English  kingdom,  while 
the  nation,  and  even  the  great  barons  of  Norman  origin,  had  but  little 
interest  in  them.  The  baron  was  ready  to  refnse  all  aid  to  tlie  king 
unless  satisfied  upon  the  point  especially  near  to  him,  his  rights  at 
home  ;  the  king  was  ready  to  compromise  on  the  demands  of  the  barons 
if  he  could  get  their  help  in  France.  The  French  possessions  were  lost 
when  they  could  no  longer  be  of  use  in  domestic  politics,  and  when  the 
growth  of  international  rivalries  would  have  made  a  continental  posi- 
tion of  great  disadvantage  to  the  cause  of  the  English  people. 


350  MEDIEVAL  civilizatio:n- 

The  increasing  power  of  Parliament  over  taxation  is 
only  one  form  of  its  increasing  power  in  the  general  gov- 
ernment of  the  country,  and  leads  us  directly  to  a  con- 
sideration of  the  share  of  the  nation  in  the  control  of 
public  affairs  at  the  beginning  of  modern  history.  The 
primary  fact  in  this  direction,  upon  which  nearly  all  the 
rest  was  founded,  was  the  composition  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  This  was  determined  by  a  fact  which  distin- 
guishes the  England  of  the  later  middle  ages  from  all 
other  European  countries — the  existence  of  a  land-own- 
ing middle  class,  of  a  class  the  great  majority  of  whom 
would  have  ranked  with  the  nobles  in  any  continental 
state,  and  would  have  insisted  upon  their  rank  and  privi- 
leges with  especial  strictness,  but  who,  in  England,  found 
themselves  more  nearly  allied  in  interests  and  desires 
wdth  the  Third  Estate  than  with  the  great  barons.  This 
union  was  due  to  a  variety  of  causes,  prominent  among 
which  was  the  county  organization,  in  which  it  had  long 
existed.'  It  was  the  county  organization,  also,  which 
suggested  the  principle  and  the  method  of  representation, 
the  representation  first  of  the  counties  by  the  knights  of 
the  shire,  in  the  reign  of  John,  and  then  of  the  boroughs 
in  1265.  The  composition  of  Parliament  was  finally 
fixed  by  the  "model  Parliament"  of  1295,  in  which  the 
representatives  of  the  towns  appeared,  constitutionally 
summoned  now  by  the  king,  not  by  a  revolutionary 
leader.  The  great  result  which  followed  from  the  union 
of  the  knights  with  the  burgesses  was  that  no  Third  Es- 
tate existed  in  England  in  <-he  same  sense  as  in  the  other 

'  It  should  be  remarked  that  recent  investigations  raise  some  ques- 
tions as  to  the  composition  of  tlie  shire  courts  in  the  period  after  the 
Norman  conquest,  and  it  may  be  necessary  in  the  end  to  modify  in 
some  points  of  detail  the  traditional  views.  It  hardly  seems  likely, 
however,  that  these  modifications  will  extend  so  far  as  to  affect  the 
general  principle  of  tlie  relation  of  the  shire  courts  to  the  beginning  of 
the  representative  system. 


ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  351 

countries  of  the  time.  The  House  of  Commons  repre- 
sented not  a  class  but  the  nation.  This  Avas  increasingly 
the  case  as  time  went  on.  It  was  rendered  easier  and 
more  complete  by  the  fact,  peculiar  also  to  England,  that 
all  the  members  of  a  noble  family,  except  the  ojie  actu- 
ally holding  the  title,  were  in  law  commoners,  and  by 
the  fact  that  the  clergy  as  a  body  withdrew  fi'om  Parlia- 
ment, some  members  of  the  order  onlv  attendiucr  the 
House  of  Lords  in  their  capacity  as  barons.  The  alliance 
of  the  English  nobility  with  the  Commons  in  the  struggle 
for  libeiiy  was  determined  not  merely  by  the  fact  that 
the  barons  were  so  placed  that  they  needed  allies  against 
the  king,  but  also  by  the  fact  that  the  English  Commons 
was  a  far  more  influential  and  powerful  body  than  any 
contemporary  Third  Estate. 

As  Parliament  increased  its  power  it  meant,  step  by 
step,  the  increased  weight  and  authority  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  That  process,  which  is  so  marked  a  feature 
of  English  history  in  modern  times,  by  which  the  House 
of  Commons  has  gradually  drawn  into  its  hands  the 
whole  government  of  the  country,  begins  witliin  less 
than  a  century  after  the  model  Parliament,  almost  imme- 
diately, in  fact,  after  the  definite  separation  of  the  lower 
house  as  a  distinct  body,  and  it  was  clearly  on  the  road 
to  completion  before  the  events  of  the  Tudor  and  Stuart 
reigns  interrupted  the  regular  development  for  a  time. 

By  a  series  of  precedents,  beginning  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  III.,  the  Commons  had  secured  the  recognition 
of  the  principle  that  their  consent  was  necessary  to  the 
validity  of  a  law,  and  that  no  changes  should  be  made  in 
the  wording  of  a  law  after  its  adoption  by  them.  Begin- 
ning from  the  same  time,  they  had  established  their  right 
to  inipiire  into  abuses  in  the  administration  of  the  public 
business,  and  to  hold  the  king's  ministers  to  trial  and 
punishment   for  their  misconduct,  by  an  impeachment 


352  MKDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

conducted  by  themselves.  The  great  principle  neces- 
sarily involved  in  this,  that,  since  the  king  can  do  no 
wrong,  all  misconduct  in  the  administration  must  be  due 
to  his  ministers,  who  can  be  brought  to  account  and 
punished  without  civil  war  or  revolution,  was  not  put 
into  any  explicit  shape,  as  a  recognized  constitutional 
doctrine,  until  the  latter  part  of  the  Stuart  period  ;  but 
the  foundation  for  it  was  laid  in  the  reign  of  Richard  II. 
Finally,  it  was  a  very  important  precedent  which  was 
made  by  Parliament,  though  without  any  very  definite 
idea  of  its  meaning,  in  the  deposition  of  Edward  II.,  in 
1327.  By  the  deposition  of  Richard  II.,  in  1399,  this 
precedent  was  made  stronger,  and  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple, by  which  alone  a  revolution  of  the  sort  can  be 
justified,  was  made  more  evident.  For  the  thing  which 
made  the  nation  turn  against  Richard  II.  was  not  the 
wrongs  which  Henry  of  Lancaster  had  suffered,  but  the 
king's  violent  disregard  of  their  constitutional  liberties. 
The  principle  that  the  king  must  govern  according  to 
the  laws,  was  already  fixed  before  the  "War  of  the  Roses 
began. 

The  age  of  the  Tudors,  which  followed,  was,  however, 
a  time  of  great  danger  for  popular  government.  The 
near  remembrance  of  a  long  civil  war,  the  weakening  of 
the  old  nobility,  the  accession  of  a  brilliant  king  with 
popular  graces  and  a  strong  will,  a  revolution  in  one 
department  of  the  public  life,  the  church,  which  tended 
to  increase  the  royal  power,  all  things  combined  to  make 
the  danger  serious  that  England  would  be  turned  into 
the  path  which  the  continental  states  were  follo^nug, 
and  the  king  become  absolute.  Had  Henry  ^^11. 
really  cared  for  such  a  result,  it  is  difiicult  to  say  what 
the  outcome  would  have  been.  But  the  Parliamentary 
title  of  their  house  to  the  throne,  together  with  the 
long  experience  of  the  kings  in  being  held  to  the  law, 


ENGLAND    AND   TttE   OTHER   STATES  353 

was  probably  more  decisive  than  iudifference  or  absorp- 
tion in  something  else  in  keeping  the  Tudors  in  the 
main  faithful  to  the  forms  of  law,  notwithstanding  theii- 
practical  despotism.  AVhen  another  family  succeeded  to 
the  throne,  with  less  hold  upon  the  nation,  the  comple- 
mentary principle  was  made  a  part  of  the  constitution, 
though  not  without  a  strong  party  against  it,  that,  if  the 
king  will  not  obey  the  law,  the  penalty  is  the  loss  of 
the  throne.  The  sovereign  has  never  since  denied  that 
he  holds  his  place  by  the  will  of  the  people.  The  revo- 
lutions of  the  seventeenth  century  had  for  their  result, 
indeed,  but  little  if  anything  more  than  to  render  ex- 
plicit, and  beyond  the  possibility  of  fm-ther  disj)ute,  the 
points  already  established  in  principle  before  the  ac- 
cession of  the  Tudors.  The  growth  of  the  English  con- 
stitution in  the  two  hundred  years  since  1688  seems 
rapid  and  large  as  compared  with  the  four  centuries 
from  William  I.  to  Henry  VII.  ;  but  in  reality,  except  in 
one  point,  the  growth  of  democracy,  the  progTess  of  the 
past  two  centuries  has  consisted  in  devising  machinery 
for  applying  the  principles  gained  by  1485  and  finally 
fixed  by  the  failure  of  the  Stuarts  to  overthrow  them, 
to  more  and  more  of  the  details  of  the  government,  as 
in  the  formation  of  the  cabinet,  for  example,  and  in  the 
control  b}'  the  ministry  of  the  nation's  foreign  policy. 

For  the  protection  of  the  individual  the  institution 
which  was  most  uearl}-  in  its  present  form  at  the  close  of 
the  middle  ages  was  the  jury,  though  the  especially  fa- 
mous cases  of  its  use  against  the  executive  were  still  to 
occur.  The  primitive  institution,  out  of  which  the  jury 
grew,  was  brought  into  England  by  the  Normans,  who 
had  themselves  derived  it  from  the  Franks.  In  its  early 
form  the  jury  was  a  body  of  men  chosen  from  among 
those  who  were  supposed  to  have  a  personal  knowledge 
of  the  matter,  to  whom  was  submitted,  under  oath,  the 


354  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

question  as  to  the  facts  in  any  case  which  might  arise 
in  administrative  or  executive  matters,  the  assessment 
of  taxes,  for  example,  or  of  fines,  as  in  clause  twenty 
of  the  Magna  Charta.  This  practice  came  into  especial 
use  in  the  king's  courts,  as  distinguished  from  the  coun- 
ty courts,  for  the  settlement  of  disj^utes  concerning  the 
ownership  of  lands,  and  was  recognized  in  the  laws 
under  Henry  II.  From  this  time  the  development  of 
the  institution  was  rapid,  more  slow  in  criminal  than 
in  civil  cases,  and  the  jury  gradually  advanced  from 
depending  upon  their  own  knowledge  of  the  facts  con- 
cerned to  taking  into  account  evidence  submitted  to 
them.  The  jmy  system  secures  two  points  which  are 
of  great  value  for  individual  liberty.  The  first  is  the 
right  of  the  citizens  themselves  to  decide  the  guilt  or 
innocence  of  the  accused,  in  view,  if  the  case  seems  to 
demand  it,  of  general  considerations  rather  than  of  the 
special  evidence.'  This  is  a  right  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance in  the  trial  of  political  oftenders,  on  charges 
either  of  technical  violation  of  existing  laws  or  of  con- 
structive or  pretended  offences.  The  second  is  the  fact 
that,  by  the  use  of  the  jiu-y,  the  judge  occupies  a  posi- 
tion of  impartiality  in  a  criminal  trial,  as,  in  a  sort,  an 

'  Interesting  instances  of  the  application  of  tliis  principle  are  to  be 
found  in  recent  American  experience,  in  cases  where  juries  have  ac- 
quitted persons  brought  to  trial  for  the  violation  of  local  liquor  laws, 
against  the  most  conclusive  and  notorious  evidence  because  the  laws 
did  not  have  the  sanction  of  the  community. 

So  thoroughly  established  does  our  civil  liberty  seem  to  us,  so  little 
do  we  fear  any  encroachment  upon  it  by  the  executive,  that  the  popu- 
lar consciousness  has  almost  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  jury  system 
is  one  of  the  most  important  institutions  by  which  our  liberty  is  secured. 
The  advocates  who  arise  periodically  in  favor  of  its  abolition,  because 
of  the  abuses  to  which  it  -has  lent  itself  in  the  enforcement  of  the  laws, 
seem  rarely  to  have  any  knowledge  of  its  history.  Indeed,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  against  what  may  be  the  danger  of  the  future,  the  tyr- 
anny of  a  democracy,  the  jury  is  anything  but  a  protection. 


ENGLAND    AXD   THE   OTHER   STATES  355 

umpire  between  the  parties,  and  is  not  directly  interested 
in  ascertaining  the  facts,  as  in  the  French  criminal  prac- 
tice, for  instance,  where  the  judge  is  almost  a  legalized 
inquisitor,  and  the  accused  is  subjected  to  a  judicial  ex- 
amination, which,  however  carefully  it  may  be  guarded, 
seems  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind  a  serious  evil.  Neither 
of  these  points  was  clearly  fixed  in  the  English  practice 
at  the  close  of  the  middle  ages.  The  beginning  had  been 
made  in  the  definite  organization  of  the  jury  system, 
of  which  these  were  to  be  the  necessary  conclusions,  but 
it  was  reserved  for  later  times  to  draw  them  clearly.  In 
fact,  the  independence  of  the  judge,  fi-om  executive  inter- 
ference, as  well  as  his  independence  in  the  process  of 
trial,  was  the  most  important  element  of  Anglo-Saxon 
liberty  not  distinctly  foreshadowed  in  the  medieval  times. 

Other  rights  of  individual  liberty,  secured  by  1485, 
cannot  be  better  stated  than  in  the  Avords  of  Hallam,  at 
the  beginning  of  his  Constitutional  History.  He  says  : 
"  No  man  could  be  committed  to  prison  but  by  a  legal 
warrant  specifying  his  offence  ;  and  by  a  usage  nearly 
tantamount  to  constitutional  right,  he  must  be  speedily 
brought  to  trial  by  means  of  regular  sessions  of  gaol-de- 
livery. The  fact  of  guilt  or  innocence,  on  a  criminal 
charge,  was  determined  in  a  public  court,  and  in  the 
county  where  the  offence  was  alleged  to  have  occui-red, 
by  a  jury  of  twelve  men,  from  whose  unanimous  verdict 
no  appeal  could  be  made.  Civil  rights,  so  far  as  they 
depended  on  questions  of  fact,  were  subject  to  the  same 
decision.  The  officers  and  servants  of  the  crown,  vio- 
lating the  personal  liberty  or  other  right  of  the  subject, 
might  be  sued  in  an  action  for  damages  to  be  assessed 
by  a  jury,  or,  in  some  cases,  were  liable  to  criminal  pro- 
cess ;  nor  could  they  plead  any  warrant  or  command  in 
their  justification,  nor  even  the  direct  order  of  the  king." 

To  this  should  be  added  the  fact  that  by  a  law  of  Ed- 


356  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

ward  III.,  in  1352,  the  judicial  punishment  of  treason 
had  been  limited  to  certain  definitely  specified  cases,  a 
safeguard  for  the  individual  of  as  great  importance 
against  a  democracy  as  against  a  monarchy.  The  Eng- 
lish law  has  not  greatly  improved  upon  this  ancient 
statute,  but  the  American  has  gone  much  further  in  the 
same  direction  in  the  clause  of  the  Constitution  on  the 
subject  which  marks  out  very  strict  limitations  both  of 
definition  and  of  trial. 

England  was  by  no  means  a  republic  at  the  close  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  Much  had  yet  to  be  done  before 
that  end  was  reached,  but  the  work  of  converting  it  into 
a  republic  was  well  under  way,  and,  as  compared  with 
any  of  the  other  states  of  the  time,  of  equal  size  or 
promise,  it  entirely  justifies  the  remark  of  Philip  de 
Comines,  cited  in  the  last  chapter,^  or  the  words  of  Sir 
John  Fortescue,  written  under  Henry  VI.,  and  so  often 
quoted  :  "  A  king  of  England  cannot,  at  his  pleasure, 
make  any  alterations  in  the  laws  of  the  land.  .  .  . 
He  is  appointed  to  protect  his  subjects  in  their  lives, 
properties,  and  laws ;  for  this  very  end  and  purpose  he 
has  the  delegation  of  power  from  the  people,  and  he  has 
no  just  claim  to  any  other  power  but  this." '' 

With  the  close  of  the  Hohenstaufen  period  in  German 
history  tlie  power  of  the  central  government  had  almost 
totally  disappeared,  arjd  the  complete  sovereignty  and 
independence  of  the  feudal  subdivisions  of  the  state  was 
practically  established  if  not  legally  recognized.  The 
period  of  twenty  years  which  followed,  knoA\-n  as  the 
Great  Interregnum,  during  which  there  was  only  the 
merest  shadow  of  a  general  government — the  nominal 

1  See  p.  336,  iwir. 

■  Taswell-Langmead,  Eiujlish  Constitutional  Histo'ry^  p.  378. 


ENGLAND    AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  357 

sovereignty  in  the  hands  of  foreigners,  who,  if  they  vis- 
ited Germany  at  all,  did  so  only  for  parade,  and  every 
l<jcal  ruler  laying  his  hands  upon  what  he  pleased  that 
was  within  his  reach — completed  the  process  of  dissolu- 
tion, if  it  needed  completion. 

The  policy  which  the  electors  definitely  adopted,  and 
continued  in  operation  through  the  age  which  follows 
the  Interregnum,  is  equivalent  to  an  official  declaration 
that  this  dissolution  is  complete.  In  electing  an  em- 
peror they  selected,  so  far  as  possible,  a  candidate  from 
a  family  having  but  scanty  resources  and  small  power  of 
its  own,  and  they  changed  from  one  family  to  another  as 
often  as  circumstances  would  permit.  Eudolf  of  Haps- 
burg,  Adolf  of  Nassau,  Henry  of  Luxemburg,  and 
Lewis  of  Bavaria  are  all  examples  of  this  policy.  It  is 
manifestly  the  result  of  a  united  judgment  on  the  part 
of  the  electors,  almost  formally  expressed,  that  if  a  real 
national  government  is  ever  to  be  reconstructed,  and  a 
centralization  established  like  that  which  was  forming  in 
France,  it  must  be  done  by  the  independent  family  re- 
sources of  the  emperor.  It  could  not  be  done,  in  their 
judgment,  by  the  use  of  the  sovereign  rights  and  prerog- 
atives which  remained  to  the  imperial  oflice.  The  em- 
peror's power  as  sovereign,  in  its  actual  condition,  was 
not  to  be  feared,  the  only  source  of  danger  to  their  po- 
sition was  the  fact  that  his  personal  i)ower  might  be 
great  enough  to  lead  him  to  try  to  recover  the  rights  of 
government  which  had  been  lost.  This  policy  the 
electors  followed  in  general  to  the  end  of  the  middle 
ages,  and  they  finally'  allowed  the  imperial  succession  to 
settle  quietly  in  the  Hapsburg  family  only  when  it  had 
become  manifest  to  all  the  world  that  it  Avas  nothing 
more  than  an  empty  title. 

The  policy  which  the  emperors  on  their  side  adopted 
was  an  equally  emphatic  declaration  of  the  same  fact. 


358  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Not  a  single  one  of  them,  during  the  whole  period,  made 
any  serious  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  central  govern- 
ment, but  every  family,  without  exception,  that  gained 
possession  of  the  imperial  office,  attempted  to  make  all 
that  it  could  out  of  the  opportunities  of  the  position  to 
enlarge  its  own  possessions  and  to  increase  its  family 
power.  Some  met  with  greater  and  others  with  less 
success;  but  all  —  Hapsburg  and  Nassau,  Wittelsbach 
and  Luxemburg — were  governed  by  the  same  rules  of 
conduct.  It  was  in  e£fect  a  unanimous  agreement  on 
the  part  of  the  emperors  that  centralization  was  no  lon- 
ger possible,  that  there  was  no  use  in  trying  to  form  a 
national  government  for  the  German  people,  but  that  the 
only  successful  use  to  which  the  imperial  position  could 
be  put  was  to  make  their  own  local  state  as  large  and  as 
strong  as  possible. 

The  two  families  most  successful  in  this  policy  were 
those  of  Hapsbui-g  and  of  Luxemburg.  Eudolf  of 
Hapsburg,  the  first  emperor  chosen  after  the  Interreg- 
num, was  a  count  whose  scanty  possessions  lay  in  west- 
ern Switzerland  and  Alsace.  He  was  a  man  of  vigorous 
character,  but  one  in  no  way  distinguished  in  power  or 
possessions  from  a  hundi-ed  others  in  the  Germany  of 
that  day  who  remained  unheard  of  in  history.  The  f  or- 
timate  fact  that  he  was  able  to  break  up  the  threatening 
Slavic  kingdom,  which  was  ruled  over  by  Ottokar  II., 
king  of  Bohemia,  enabled  him  to  bestow  the  south  Ger- 
man duchies,  Austria  and  Styria,  which  had  been  Otto- 
kar's,  upon  his  son,  and  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  fut- 
m-e  greatness  of  his  house.  The  electors  did  not  allow 
the  croNvn  to  continue  during  the  next  generation  in  Ru- 
dolf's family,  but  later  other  Hapsburg  emperors  fol- 
lowed, and  were  able  to  continue  his  policy. 

An  equally  fortunate  chance  occm-red  during  the  reign 
of  the  fii-st  Luxemburg  emperor,  Henry  YII.,  in  the  op- 


ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  359 

poitunity  presented  liim  to  marry  liis  son  John  to  the 
heiress  of  the  Bohemian  crown.  John's  son,  the  Em- 
peror Charles  lY.,  succeeded  in  gaining  possession  also 
of  Brandenburg,  which  the  Emperor  Lewis  lY.  of  Ba- 
varia, who  followed  Henry  YII.,  had  tried  to  secure  for 
his  family.  The  last  emperor  of  the  Luxembui'g  house, 
Sigismund,  abandoned  Brandenbui-g  but  obtained  the 
kingdom  of  Hungary.  He  was  the  last  of  the  male  line 
of  his  family,  however,  and  the  great  possessions  which 
they  had  brought  together  passed  with  his  daughter  to 
the  Hapsbui'gs,  so  that  the  acquisitions  made  by  the  two 
families  who  had  most  successfully  followed  this  policy 
of  getting  all  that  they  could  for  themselves  from  the 
imperial  office,  were  finally  united  in  the  hands  of  the 
Hapsburgs  alone. 

It  was  during  the  Luxemburg  period  that  Brandenburg 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  HohenzoUerns,  who  have 
erected  modem  Prussia  upon  it  as  the  foundation.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  Hohenzol- 
lems  were,  like  the  Hapsburgs,  merely  local  counts  in 
Switzerland,  giving  no  promise  of  futui-e  gi'eatness. 
Early  in  that  century  the  elder  line  obtained  the  office  of 
Bm'ggraf  of  Nuremberg  and  an  opportimity  to  grow  rich, 
which  was  improved  with  the  hereditary  thriftiness  of 
the  family,  and  fortunate  marriages  and  purchases  in- 
creased then-  possessions  and  influence  in  southern  Ger- 
many. Finally,  in  1411,  the  Emperor  Sigismimd,  in  need 
of  money  and  unable  to  establish  a  sound  government  in 
the  troubled  and  disordered  electorate  of  Brandenburg, 
gave  it  into  the  hands  of  Frederick  of  Nui'emberg  as 
pledge  for  a  loan,  and  a  few  years  later  sold  it  to  him 
outright.  Ai'ound  this  as  a  beginning  the  later  Hohen- 
zollern  electors  and  kings  collected,  piece  by  piece,  the 
modern  Prussia. 

Many  other  small  states  were  forming  in  the  same  way 


860  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

in  Germany  at  this  time,  man}-  tliat  have  not  survived 
the  political  storms  of  modern  history,  and  some  that 
have  continued  to  grow  larger  and  stronger,  or  at  least 
that  have  made  good  their  place  in  the  present  federal 
empire  of  Germany.  Within  many  of  these  states  the 
course  of  history  was  very  similar  to  that  in  France.  A 
group  of  feudally  independent  territories  was  united 
under  a  single  ruler,  and  by  degrees  the  barriers  which 
separated  them  were  broken  down  and  they  were  central- 
ized in  a  common  government,  and  in  this  process  such 
elements  of  local  liberty  as  had  remained  were  destroyed 
and  the  government  became  an  absolutism. '  This  pro- 
cess was  one,  however,  which  occurred  in  most  cases, 
and  the  larger  part  of  it  in  modern  history  rather  than 
in  medieval. 

In  Italy,  as  in  Germany,  the  nation  was  able  to  form 
no  government.  In  both  cases,  as  w^e  have  seen,  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire  was  at  fault.  In  Italy  it  was  a 
foreign  power  which  j)re vented  the  rise  of  any  native 
state  to  a  sufficient  strength  to  absorb  the  whole  penin- 
sula. To  the  influence  of  the  empire  must  be  added  that 
of  the  papacy  as  an  equally  responsible  cause — as  the 
one  most  responsible  in  the  last  centuries  of  the  middle 
ages,  after  the  empire  had  practically  disappeared,  and 
in  modern  times.  The  position  of  the  pope,  as  sovereign 
of  a  little  state  in  central  Italy,  had  forced  him,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  self-defence,  to  use  all  possible  means  to  prevent 
the  rise  of  any  threatening  power  in  Italy  fi-om  the  days 
of  the  Lombards  down— down,  indeed,  to  Victor  Em- 
manuel.    When  such  a  power  appeared  to  be  forming 

'  The  dramatic  struggle  of  Franz  von  Sickingen  against  the  princes 
of  the  Upper  Rhine  valley,  in  1533,  is  an  instance  of  the  desperate  at- 
tempt of  the  smaller  independent  nobles  to  maintain  their  position 
against  the  absorbing  tendency  of  these  little  states. 


ENGLAND    AND   THE   OTHER  STATES  861 

the  pope  would  strive  to  form  combinations  against  it 
until  its  strength  was  reduced  below  the  danger-point, 
and  if  in  the  process  one  of  its  own  allies  gained  too 
much  strength,  new  combinations  were  immediately  set 
on  foot  against  the  new  danger. 

No  government  for  the  nation  was  able  to  be  formed, 
but  an  immense  variety  of  local  governments  arose,  and 
a  most  intricate  entanglement  of  interstate  politics.  In 
the  south,  Naples  was  an  absolute  monarchy.  The  States 
of  the  Church  were  an  ecclesiastical  monarchy,  very 
loosely  organized  during  most  of  the  middle  ages,  but 
brought  into  order  and  centralized  by  the  political  genius 
of  Julius  II.  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Florence  presents  us  an  interesting  case.  Originally  a 
republic,  with  a  tendency  toward  democrac}^,  it  passed 
under  the  power  of  a  family  of  rich  bankers,  the  Medici, 
who,  without  holding  any  office  and  without  destroying 
the  forms  of  the  republic,  filled  all  the  offices  with  their 
nominees  and  determined  every  public  act  exactly  as 
does  an  American  "  boss  "  when  his  party  is  in  power.' 
In  the  sixteenth  century  the  state  became  an  avowed 
monarchy  under  the  Medici  as  grand  dukes.  Milan  was 
a  republic  turned  into  a  monarchy  by  military  force,  and 
Venice  a  republic  which  had  become  a  very  close  oli- 
garchy. 

But  if  a  national  government  was  not  formed,  a  na- 
tional consciousness  was,  as  in  Germany,  and  it  was 
given  clear  expression  now  and  then.     Its  most  remark- 

'  At  the  moment  of  this  writing  the  newspapers  are  saying  that  the 
speaker  of  the  New  York  Assembly  of  1893  has  stated  publicly  that 
"  all  legislation  of  the  last  session  came  from  Tammany  Hall,  and  was 
dictated  by  that  great  statesman,  Richard  Croker,"  the  "  boss  "  of  New 
York  City.  See  the  New  York  N<ifwn,  Vol.  LVI.,  p.  304,  which  adds: 
"  Nothing  that  Croker  desired  to  pass  failed  of  passage,  and  nothing  that 
he  objected  to  was  able  to  get  even  a  hearing."  This  was  exactly  the 
position  of  the  early  Medici. 


362  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

able  product  was  Machiavelli's  Prince,  written,  beyond 
a  reasonable  doubt,  to  show  how,  in  the  evil  circumstances 
then  existing,  a  national  government  might  be  created. 

The  rapid  rise  of  Spain  to  a  position  of  first  rank 
among  the  nations  was  one  of  the  most  important 
political  facts  of  the  close  of  the  middle  ages.  This  was 
due  to  two  causes  :  to  the  union  of  the  two  largest  king- 
doms of  the  peninsula  by  the  marriage  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella,  and  to  the  political  skill  of  Ferdinand.  Dis- 
union between  the  various  provinces,  feudal  anarchy, 
local  independence,  and  a  weak  central  government  were 
the  characteristics  of  Spain  when  he  began  to  reign. 
Within  a  few  years  order  was  secured,  the  baronage  re- 
duced to  obedience,  the  process  of  breaking  down  the 
securities  of  local  independence  and  the  old  institutions 
of  liberty  well  begun,  the  monarchy  made  practically  an 
absolutism,  if  not  in  every  respect  legally  so  as  yet,  and, 
although  the  old  provincial  lines  and  provincial  jealousies 
could  not  be  entirely  obliterated,  they  were  thrown  into 
the  background  by  the  coming  up  of  new  and  more  na- 
tional interests.  It  was  chance  rather  than  skill  which 
added  America  to  the  resources  of  the  Spanish  monarchy, 
but  it  formed  no  inconsiderable  element  in  the  rapid  rise 
of  the  new  state.  In  all  else,  the  internal  consolidation, 
the  conquest  of  Granada  and  Navarre,  the  footing  gained 
in  Italy,  the  judgment  in  regard  to  the  policy  of  France, 
and  the  allies  which  were  secui-ed,  the  political  skill  of 
Ferdinand  must  be  admitted,  however  disastrous  his 
policy  was  to  prove  in  other  hands  and  in  conditions 
which  no  genius  could  forecast. 

Ferdinand  was,  of  all  the  sovereigns  of  his  day,  the 
one  who  saw  most  clearly  that,  in  political  affairs,  the 
middle  ages  had  passed  away  and  a  new  age  begun.  He 
could  hardly  have  stated  his  opinion  in  these  words,  but 


ENGLAND   AND   THE   OTHER   STATES  363 

he  realized  that  the  settlement  of  the  domestic  problems 
which  he  had  so  well  in  hand  left  the  state  at  liberty  to 
secui'e  advantages  for  itself  in  Europe  at  large,  and  that 
the  near  rivalry  of  other  European  states  for  these  ad- 
vantages made  it  the  part  of  wisdom  to  be  beforehand 
with  them,  and  to  get  a  footing  and  allies  wherever  pos- 
sible. The  first  links  in  the  chain  of  modern  interna- 
tional politics  were  forged  by  Ferdinand.  It  was  the 
settlement  of  these  domestic  problems  in  all  the  states,  or 
their  settlement  to  such  an  extent  that  they  were  no 
longer  the  most  pressing  necessities  *  of  the  moment, 
which  brings  tjie  middle  ages  to  an  end  politically,  and 
leads  to  the  beginning  of  that  most  characteristic  feature 
of  modern  history — diplomacy. 


r 


CHAPTEE  XV. 


THE   RENAISSANCE 


We  have  now  traced,  as  resulting  from  the  influence 
imparted  by  the  crusades,  great  economic  and  political 
revolutions  which  changed  the  face  of  history,  and 
brought  the  middle  ages  to  a  close  so  far  as  their  intiu- 
ence  reached.  These  two  revolutions  were  hardly  more 
than  well  under  way  w^heu  there  began  another,  growing 
largely  out  of  the  conditions  which  they  were  producing, 
starting  partly  from  the  same  general  impulse  which  aid- 
ed them,  a  revolution  of  even  greater  importance  than 
they  in  its  influence  upon  the  characteristic  features  of 
our  own  time,  if  it  is  possible  to  measure  the  relative 
values  of  such  movements — that  intellectual  and  scientific 
transformation  of  Europe  which  we  pall  the  Revival  of 
Learning,  or  the  Eenaissance. 

Each  of  these  names  expresses  a  great  fact  which  was 
characteristic  of  the  movement  and  which  it  is  well  to 
distinguish,  the  one  from  the  other. 

It  Avas  a  revival  of  learning.  The  conditions  Avhich 
had  prevailed  in  the  earlier  middle  ages,  and  obscured 
the   learning   which   the    ancients   had   acquired,    were 

'  The  literature  ou  this  subject  is  very  extensive  and  well  known. 
See  especially,  on  the  earlier  portion  of  the  chapter,  Mullinger,  ScTiooh 
of  Charles  the  Gh'cat  ;  West,  Alcmn  ;  Laurie,  Rise  of  Univermties  :  and  on 
the  later,  Symonds,  Henamance  in  Italy,  and  Burckhardt,  Tlie  Ciciliza- 
tion  of  the  Renaissance. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  365 

changing  rapidly,  the  effects  of  the  Teutonic  invasion 
were  passing  away.  Conquerors  and  conquered  had 
grown  into  a  single  people,  and  the  descendants  of  the 
original  Germans  had  reached  the  point  where  they 
could  com  prehend  the  highest  results  of  the  ancient  civ- 
ilization. New  national  languages  had  been  formed,  and 
literatures  had  begun,,  no  longer  ecclesiastical  in  author- 
ship or  theme  but  close  to  daily  life.  The  stir  of  great 
events,  and  the  contagion  of  new  ideas  in  coiumerce  and 
exploration  and  politics  filled  the  air,  and  the  hqiizon  of 
men's  minds  and  interests  was  daily  growing  wider.  It 
was  impossible  that  many  generations  of  these  economic 
and  political  changes  should  go  by  before  men  began  to 
realize  that  there  lay  behind  them  a  most  significant 
history,  and  that  the  men  of  the  past  had  many  things 
to  teach  them.  When  men  became  conscious  of  this  the 
revival  of  learning  began. 

But  it  was  more  than  a  revival  of  learning — more  than 
a  recovery  of  what  the  ancient  world  had  knoAvn  and 
the  medieval  forgotten.  It  was  also  a  renaissance,  a 
re-birth  of  emotions  and  of  faculties  long  dormant,  an 
awakening  of  man  to  a  new  consciousness  of  life  and  of 
the  world  in  which  he  lives,  and  of  the  problems  ^  which 
life  and  the  world  present  for  the  thinking  mind  to  solve, 
and  to  a  consciousness  also  of  the  power  of  the  mind  to 
deal  with  these  problems  and  to  investigate  the  secrets 
of  nature. 

This  intellectual  movement  was  then,  in  the  first  place, 
a  recovery  of  the  learning  and  literature  of  the  ancient , 
world. 

.^'Olassioal  literature  had  never  passed  into  absolute 
eclipse  even  in  the  darkest  days.  The  Gorman  states 
^\'hicll  took  the  place  of  the  empire  would  have  been 
glad  to  preserve  and  continue  the  Roman  system  of  pub- 
lic schools,  which  extended  through  the  provinces,  if  they 


366  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

had  known  liow  to  do  so.  But  tliey  did  not.  They  were 
themselves  still  too  crude  and  backwtird  to  be  able  to  take 
hold  of  the  old  educational  system  as  a  rescuing  power, 
and  to  save  it  from  the  decline  which  had  already  begun, 
nor  could  they  infuse  new  life  and  vigor  into  the  dying- 
classic  literature.  On  the  other  hand,  the  old  lacked  all 
indejiendent  power  of  growth  and  did  not  have  force 
enough  to  master  the  Germans  and  raise  them  rapidly  to 
its  own  level.  The  disorderly  and  rapidly  shifting  po- 
litical conditions  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  did  not 
a  little  also  to  destroy  tho^  schools,  and  the  attitude  of 
the  church  toward  them,  if  not  directly  hostilo,  was  dis- 
couraging. 

As  a  result,  the  state  schools  disappeared ;  a  really  - 
educated  class  no  longer  existed  ;  the  knowledge  of  Greek, 
which  had  been  very  common  throughout  the  West,  was 
entirely  lost — St.  Augustine,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
century,  could  use  it  only  with  difficulty ;  and,  as  an  im- 
mediate result  of  the  conquest,  the  ability  to  use  the 
Latin  language  correctly  also  threatened  to  disappear. 
The  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  represent  probably  the 
lowest  point  reached  in  the  intellectual  decline  of  the 
middle  ages,  though  the  actual  improvement  vipon  them 
which  was  made  before  the  eleventh  century  was  not  vei^ 
great. 

The  place  of  the  state  schools  was  taken  in  the  new 
kingdoms  by  (?hurch  schools.  The  course  of  study  in  the 
Roman  schools  had  been  a  narrow  one,  as  we  should 
regard  it,  its  object  being  chiefly  to  fit  for  public  life  and 
oratory.  The  church  schools  were  still  more  narrow — 
not  in  the  nominal  coiu'se  of  study  which  followed  the 
classic— the  trivium,  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  dialectics, 
and  the  quadrivium,  arithmetic,  geometry,  astronomy, 
and  music— but  in  the  meagre  contents  of  these  studies 
and  in  the  practical  object,  to  fit  the  pupils  as  priests 


THE   RENAISSANCE  367 

to  read  tlie  service  of  the  churcli,  not  always  to  under- 
stand it. 

The  first  improvement  in  these  schools  came  in  the  age 
of  Alcuin,  under  Charlemagne,  as  has  already  been  related. 
This  was  a  revival  of  schools  rather  than  of  learning, 
but  it  was  enough  of  both  to  have  led  in  a  short  time  to 
a  very  decided  advance,  if  the  political  and  social  condi- 
tion had  continued  to  make  this  possible.  Mind  was  en- 
ergetic and  vigorous  enough.  There  was  no  lack  of  abil- 
ity. The  ecclesiastical  literatiu-e  of  the  time,  both  the 
imaginative  and  the  legal,  makes  that  evident.  But  if 
th^re  was  ability  there  was  also  the  greatest  ignorance. 
The  historical  mistakes  are  of  the  baldest,  the  science 
the  most  absurd,  broad  and  general  conceptions  are 
wholly  lacking.  The  literature  reveals  at  once  the  great 
activity  of  mind  and  the  narrow  conditions  of  the  age. 

In  the  following  centuries,  here  and  there,  slight  im- 
provements were  made.-  The  school  of  Rheims  under 
Gerbert  in  the  tenth  century,  the  school  of  Chartres  under 
Bernard  in  the  twelfth  century,  are  remarkable  instances, 
but  circumscribed,  like  all  else  of  the  time,  in  their  in- 
*fluence.^  Some  additions  of  importance  were  made  to 
the  stock  of  knowledge — some  books  of  Euclid,  some 
treatises  of  Aristotle.  Impulses  from  without  began  to 
be  received ;  some  very  slight  Byzantine  influence,  per- 
liaps  under  the  Ottos  of  Germany ;  more  important  the 
influence  from  the  Arabian  civilization  of  south  Europe, 
though  this  is  extremely  difficult  to  trace  with  any  cer- 
tainty in  its  beginnings  ;  more  effectual  still,  among  new- 
influences,  the  general  awakening,  and  the  gradual  trans- 
formation of  all  external  conditions  which  followed  the 
crusades. 

'See  Poole,  JllvMrations  of  tlie  History  of  Medieval  Thovr/fit,  for  the 
period  between  Charlemagne's  revival  aud  the  founding  of  the  Univer- 
sities. 


868  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

The  first  effect  of  these  changes  and  of  these  new  im- 
pulses was  that  the  mind  of  Em-oiJe  began  to  be  aroused, 
began  to  have  some  dim  idea  of  the  work  which  it  might 
do,  and  became  eager  to  learn  and  to  produce.  But  it 
still  did  not  know.  It  did  not  have  the  materials  of 
knowledge.  The  work  of  the  ancients  was  still  a  sealed 
book  to  it,  and  it  had  no  conception  of  the  investigation 
of  nature.  In  consequence  it  went  to  work  with  the 
greatest  activity  and  earnestness  on  the  materials  which 
it  did  have,  the  dogmatic  theology  of  the  church,  certain 
scanty  principles  of  the  Greek  philosophy,  and  the  truths 
which  it  could  derive  from  reason,  and  out  of  these  ma- 
terials by  purely  speculative  methods  it  built  up  widely 
comprehensive  systems  of  thought,  highly  organized  and 
scientific,  so  far  as  it  was  possible  for  them  to  be  scien- 
tific, but  one-sided  and  utterly  barren  for  all  the  chief  in- 
terests of  modern  life,  and  necessarily  so  because  of  the 
limitations  of  their  material  and  of  their  method.^ 


'  Lord  Bacon  described  the  real  nature  of  Scholasticism  in  a  passage 
which  cannot  be  too  often  qnoted  in  this  connection.  He  says  :  "  This 
kind  of  degenerate  learning  did  chiefly  reign  among  the  schoolmen,  who 
— having  sharp  and  strong  wits,  and  abundance  of  leisure,  and  small 
variety  of  reading,  but  their  wits  being  shut  up  in  the  cells  of  a  few 
authors  (chiefly  Aristotle  their  dictator),  as  their  persons  were  shut  up 
in  the  cells  of  monasteries  and  colleges,  and  knowing  little  history, 
either  of  nature  or  time— did,  out  of  no  great  quantity  of  matter  and' 
infinite  agitation  of  wit,  spin  out  unto  us  those  laborious  webs  of  learn- 
ing which  are  extant  in  their  books.  Tor  the  wit  and  mind  of  man,  if 
it  work  upon  matter,  which  is  the  contemplation  of  the  creatures  of 
God,  worketh  according  to  the  stuff  and  is  limited  thereby  ;  but  if  it 
work  upon  itself,  as  the  spider  worketh  his  web,  then  it  is  endless,  and 
brings  forth,  indeed,  cobwebs  of  learning,  admirable  for  the  fineness  of 
thread  and  work,  but  of  no  substance  or  profit."  —  Advancement  of 
Leimiing,  iv.  5. 

To  hold  up  certain  absurdities  of  Scholasticism  to  ridicule,  as  has 
sometimes  been  done,  as  if  they  indicated  the  real  character  of  the  sys- 
tem, is  to  furnish  good  evidence  of  one's  own  narrowness  of  mind.  Not 
merely  did  Scholasticism  make  important  contributions  to  one  side  of 


THE   KENAISSANCE  3G9 

This  system,  Scholasticism,  was  the  first  movement  of 
the  age  of  the  Renaissance,  its  prediction  and  its  intro- 
duction. It  originated  under  the  influence  of  the  causes 
which  led  to  the  Eenaissauce,  but  of  these  causes  when 
they  were  just  beginning  to  act  and  only  ffiintly  felt.  It 
disj)layed  the  same  characteristics  of  mind  as  the  later 
age,  but  these  while  they  were  not  3^et  emancipated  from 
the  control  of  other  and  thoroughly  medieval  character- 
istics. It  gave  most  hopeful  promise  of  what  was  to  be, 
but  the  new  spirit  had  as  yet  so  little  to  build  upon,  and 
was  so  dwarfed  and  overshadowed  by  tradition  and  au- 
thority, that  it  could  survive  and  display  itself  only  as 
earnest  and  eager  effort. 

The  great  age  of  active  and  creative  Scholasticism  was 
the  thirteenth  century,  one  of  the  greatest  intellectual 
ages  of  the  world's  history.  It  is  impossible  in  a  para- 
graph to  give  any  conception  of  the  intellectual  stir,  the 
mental  eagerness  and  enthusiasm  of  that  century,  or  even 
to  catalogue  its  great  names  and  their  achievements. 
Two  or  three  things  must  be  noticed  because  they  indi- 
cate in  the  clearest  way  how  the  results  of  the  thirteenth 
century  affected  the  later  movement. 

One  of  them  is  the  pathetic  story  of  Roger  Bacon,  a 
man  who  saw  the  danger  of  reliance  upon  authority,  and 
proclaimed  the  methods  of  criticism  and  observation,  and 
pointed  out  the  way  in  which  investigation  should  go, 
and  the  use  which  should  be  made  of  the  new  materials 
which  had  been  gained,  in  a  spirit  almost  modern  and 
with  such  a  clearness  of  insight  as  should  have  led  to  the 

civilization — speculative  theology  and  philosophy — but  even  its  supposed 
absurdities  had  meaning.  To  debate  the  question  whether  an  angel  can 
pass  from  one  point  to  another  without  passing  through  the  interme- 
diate space,  is  to  debate  the  question  whether  pure  being  is  conditioned 
by  space.  Very  likely  such  a  question  cannot  be  answered,  but  if  there 
is  to  be  a  system  of  speculative  philosophy  at  all,  it  must  consider  such 
questiouK  in  some  form,  and  they  cau  hardly  be  called  absurd. 
24 


370  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

revival  of  learning  as  one  of  the  immediate  results  of  the 
thirteenth  centmy.  But  he  could  get  no  one  to  hear  him. 
The  scholastic  methods  and  the  scholastic  ideals  had  be- 
come so  firmly  seated  in  their  empii'e  over  men,  under 
the  influence  of  the  great  minds  of  that  century,  that  no 
others  seemed  possible.  His  works  passed  out  of  the 
Avorld's  knowledge  with  no  discoverable  trace  of  influence 
until  the  Eenaissance  was  fully  under  way,  and  then  only 
the  very  slightest.  The  result  of  the  century,  in  other 
words,  was  entirely  opposed  in  nature  and  in  method  to 
a  rcA^val  of  real  learning. 

Another  feature  of  the  thirteenth  century  to  be  no-^ 
ticed  was  the  founding  of  universities.  Developed  out 
of  certain  of  the  earlier  schools,  under  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  age  for  learning,  by  the  introduction  of  new  methods 
of  teaching  and  of  study,  they  spread  rapidly  through- 
out Europe,  and  seemed  to  promise  most  effective  aid  to 
•  intellectual  advance.  But  in  their  case,  as  in  Bacon's, 
Scholasticism  was  too  highly  organized,  its  conceptions 
still  too  completely  filled  the  whole  mental  horizon  for 
the  learned  world  to  be  able  to  turn  in  any  other  direc- 
tion, and  the  universities  fell  completely  under  its  con- 
trol.' Even  subjects  of  study  which  it  would  seem  might 
lead  to  better  things — the  Roman  law  which,  we  should 
think,  ought  to  have  led  to  the  study  of  history ;  and 
medicine,  which  ought *to  have  suggested  an  idea  of  real 
science — became  thoroughly  scholastic,  and  held  under 
heavy  bonds  to  introduce  nothing  new. 

The  result,  then,  of  the  first  or  Scholastic  re\ival  was 
the  creation  of  a  gigantic  system  of  organized  knowledge, 
in  so  far  as  there  was  knowledge,  in  which  almost  every 
conceivable  idea  had   its  place,  and  which  exercised  a 

'Chaucer  almost  m^kes  "logic  "  synonymous  with.  "  university"  in 
his  description  of  the  clerk  of  Oxenford,  "  that  uuto  logik  hadde  louge 
i-go.' — Prologue,  1.  286. 


THE   KENAISSANCE  371 

most  tyranuous  sway  over  all  mental  activity,  because  it 
was  so  intimately  bound  up  with  an  infallible  system  of 
theology  which  every  mind  was  obliged  to  accept  under 
peril  of  eternal  penalties.  Independent  thinking  in  phil- 
osophy was  heresy  and  a  crime.  When  the  ,Pienaissance 
movement  really  began,  with  its  new  spirit  and  ideas  and 
methods,  it  found  the  field  wholly  occupied  by  this  great 
system,  all  the  learned  by  profession  were  its  devoted  sup- 
porters, and  the  iiniversities  its  home.  The  new  spirit 
was  compelled,  therefore,  to  take  its  rise  and  to  find  its 
apostles  outside  the  learned  professions.  The  odds  Avere 
against  it,  and  it  could  restore  true  knowledge  and 
scientific  method  only  by  severe  struggle  and  a  successful 
revolution. 

The  final  outcome,  then,  of  the  thirteenth  century  was 
that  Scholasticism,  however  earnestly  it  may  have  desired 
such  a  result  at  the  beginning,  really  introduced  no  revi- 
val of  learning,  but  brought  about  an  organization  of 
knowledge  and  of  education  which  was  a  decided  obstacle 
to  the  revival  when  it  came.  This  means,  in  other  words, 
that  no  revival  could  come  until  the  questioning  and 
criticising  spirit  which  dimly  showed  itself  in  the  forma- 
tive age  of  Scholasticism  should  awake  again  to  a  new 
activity  and  a  better  fate,  and  bring  about  a  complete 
abandonment  of  the  medieval  point  of  view. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  general 
conditions  had  come  to  be  still  more  favorable  for  such 
an  awakening  than  at  the  beginning  of  Scholasticism. 
The  economic  and  political  progress  of  the  thirteenth 
century  had  been  very  great,  and  the  fouiieenth  century 
was  a  time  of  still  more  rapid  change  in  these  respects. 
An  entirely  new  atniosphere  was  coming  to  prevail  in  the 
more  advanced  nations  of  Europe,  new  objects  of  interest, 
new  standards  of  judgment,  and  new  purposes  to  be 
realized.     If  these  changes  showed  themselves  first  in 


372  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION- 

the  growth  of  national  feelings  and  patriotism,  in  the  rise 
of  the  lower  orders  and  a  higher  regard  for  man  as  man, 
and  in  bolder  commercial  ventures  and  the  exploration 
of  unknown  lands,  it  was  barely  first.  We  can  trace  their 
continuous  expression  and  influence  in  thought  and  lit- 
erature from  a  point  almost  as  early. 

And  there  needed  to  be  added  to  these  other  changes 
which  had  already  taten  place  only  a  change  of  the  same 
sort  in  intellectual  interests,  showing  itself  as  clearly  in 
science  and  literature  and  art  as  in  government  and 
commerce,  to  complete  the  transformation  of  the  medie- 
val man  into  the  modern.  In  the  middle  ages  man  as 
an  individual  had  been  held  of  very  little  account.  He 
was  only  part  of  a  great  machine.  He  acted  only  through 
some  corporation — the  commune,  the  guild,  the  order. 
He  had  but  little  self-confidence,  and  very  little  con- 
sciousness of  his  ability  single-handed  to  do  great  things 
or  overcome  great  difficulties.  Life  was  so  hard  and  nar- 
row that  he  had  no  sense  of  the  joy  of  mere  living,  and  no 
feeling  for  the  beauty  of  the  world  around  him,  and,  as 
if  this  world  were  not  dark  enough,  the  terrors  of  another 
world  beyond  were  very  near  and  real.  He  lived  with 
no  sense  of  the  past  behind  him,  and  with  no  conception 
of  the  possibilities  of  the  future. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  tl^^e  modern  man, 
who  is  a  modern  man,  is  the  opposite  of  all  this.  We 
are  almost  too  completely  a  world  of  individuals.  We 
have  a  supreme  self-coufidenpe.  Nearly  any  man  of  us 
is  ready  to  undertake  any  tfisk  w^ith  a  firm  confidence  in 
his  ability  to  carry  it  through,  and  not  very  manv  of  us 
are  shut  out  of  a  full  enjoyment  of  the  beauties  of  this 
world  by  too  keen  a  sense  of  the  realities  ol  another. 
It  was  the  work  of  the  Renaissance  to  change  the  one 
sort  of  man  into  the  other  ;  to  awaken  in  man  a  con- 
sciousness of  his  powers  and  to  give  him  confidence  in 


thp:  renaissance  373 

himself  ;  to  show  him  the  beauty  of  the  world  and  the 
joy  of  life  ;  and  to  make  him  feel  liis  living  connection 
with  the  past,  and  the  greatness  of  the  future  which  he 
might  create. 

It  needed  but  little  of  the  successful  work  which  men 
were  doing  in  those  days  in  the  fields  of  politics  and  of 
commerce — the  creation  of  states  whether  large  or  small, 
and  the  accumulation  of  Avealth — to  arouse  these  feelings, 
at  least  in  their  beginnings,  and  in  a  half -conscious  way. 
The  impulse  which  intellectual  progress  received  at 
this  point  from  the  political  and  economic  is  clear — one 
of  the  evident  cases  of  the  close  dependence  of  the  va- 
rious lines  of  advance  upon  one  another  already  referred 
to.  And  it  is  necessary  in  order  to  obtain  any  clear 
conception  of  this  age  of  transition  to  feel  the  intimate 
connection  of  all  these  movements  with  one  another,  in- 
deed their  essential  unity  as  various  sides  of  one  great 
movement. 

It  was  in  Italy  that  this  connection  was  first  made 
and  this  impulse  first  received.  It  was  there  that  the 
new  commercial  age  had  begun  and  had  first  produced  its 
results.  :  Numerous  large  cities  had  been  formed,  pos- 
sessed of  great  wealth  and  becoming  very  early  little  inde- 
pendent states.  Their  fierce  conflicts  with  one  another 
had  thrown  them  upon  .their  own  resources,  and  called 
forth  the  greatest  mental  activity.  Within  their  walls  ex- 
citing and  bitter  party  conflicts  were  a  continuous  stimu- 
lus to  the  individual  citizen.  A  democratic  tendency  in 
most  of  them  opened  the  hope  of  great  successes  to  any 
man.  Birth  coun^pd  for  next  to  nothing.  Abilities  and 
energy  might  win  a^iy  place.  Woman  became  the  equal 
of  man,  an^  took  part  in  public  life  Avitli  the  same  self- 
confidence.  All  the  political  ^nd  commercial  activities 
of  the  time,  with  their  great  rewards  open  to  any  man, 
and  their  intense  stimulus  to  individual  ambition,  com- 


374  MEDIEVAL   CTVILIZATIOl^ 

bined  to  emancipate  the  iuclividual,  and  to  foster  in  him 
a  belief  in  his  own  powers,  and  an  independence  of  judg- 
ment and  action,  necessary  as  a  preliminary  to  the  revi- 
val of  learning.  The  raj^id  development  of  Italy  since 
the  crusades,  in  the  one  direction,  had  prepared  her  to 
lead  in  the  other,  and  this  fact  gives  ns  the  reason  why 
the  Renaissance  was  an  Italian  event. 

It  is  in  Dante  that  we  find  the  first  faint  traces  of  the 
existence  of  these  new  forces,  in  the  intellectual  world 
proper,  and  the  beginning  of  their  continuous  modern 
action,  and  we  may  call  Dante  the  first  man  of  the  Re- 
naissance, though  it  is  perhaps  equally  correct  to  call 
him  a  thoroughly  medieval  man.  His  theology  and 
philosophy  were  medieval  and  scholastic,  his  hell  was 
material  enough,  and  the  dream  of  his  political  thought 
was  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  a  distinctly  medieval  idea. 
But  along  with  these  we  catch  gleams  of  other  and  dif- 
ferent things.  His  theology  may  be  medieval  and  his 
hell  material,  but  there  is  an  independence  of  judgment 
in  special  cases  which  is  decidedly  more  modern,  and, 
something  far  more  important,  there  is  the  clearest  pos- 
sible conception  of  the  fact  that  it  is  not  a  man's  place 
in  a  great  organization,  but  his  individual  character  and 
spirit  which  determine  his  future  destiny ;  that  iudi^dd- 
ual  character  not  merely  works  itself  out  in  the  conduct 
of  life,  but  that  it  will  be  a  controlling  factor  in  fixing 
one's  place  in  any  life  hereafter.  His  political  idea  may 
be  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  but  he  reveals  traces  of  the 
distmctly  modern  feeling  that  the  state  should  exist  for 
the  sake  of  the  individual,  and  that  the  individual  should 
have  some  voice  in  the  management  of  its  affairs.  The 
^\T.'iting  of  his  great  poem  in  a  modern  language  is  no 
small  evidence  of  independence.  He  has  some  feeling 
for  the  beauty  of  the  world  and  of  life,  and  some  real 
sense  of  a  li\'ing  connection  with  the  men  of  antiquity. 


THE   REXAISSA1S"CE  375 

These  modern  traits,  however,  though  they  may  be  found 
in  Dante,  are  expressed  but  faintly.  The  great  mass  of 
his  thought  is  medieval.  It  is  only  the  slight  beginnings 
of  the  current  Avhich  we  can  detect  in  him. 

But  in  the  next  generation,  in  Petrarch,  we  have  the 
full  tide.  In  him  we  clearly  find,  as  controlling  personal 
traits,  all  those  specific  features  of  the  Renaissance  which 
give  it  its  distinguishing  character  as  an  intellectual 
revolution,  and  from  their  strong  beginning  in  him  they 
have  never  ceased  among  men.  •  In  the  first  place,  he  felt 
as  no  other  man  had  done  since  the  ancient  days  the 
beauty  of  nature  and  the  pleasiu-e  of  mere  life,  its  sufli- 
ciency  for  itself  ;  and  he  had  also  a  sense  of  ability  and 
power,  and  a  self-confidence  which  led  him  to  plan 
great  things,  and  to  hope  for  an  immortality'  of  fame  in 
this  world.  In  the  second  place,  he  had  a  most  keen 
sense  of  the  unity  of  past  history,  of  the  living  Ijond  of 
connection  between  himself  and  men  of  like  sort  in  the 
ancient  world.  That  world  was  for  him  no  dead  antiq- 
uity, but  he  lived  and  felt  in  it  and  with  its  poets  and 
thiukers,  as  if  they  were  his  neighbors.  His  love  for  it 
amounted  almost,  if  we  may  call  it  so,  to  an  ecstatic  en- 
thusiasm, hardly  understood  by  his  own  time,  but  it 
kindled  in  many  others  a  similar  feeling  which  has  come 
down  to  us.  The  result  is  easily  recognized  in  him  as  a 
genuine  culture,  the  first  of  modern  men  in  whom  this 
can  be  found. 

It  led,  also,  in  his  case,  to  what  is  another  characteris- 
tic feature  of  the  Renaissance — an  intense  desire  to  get 
possession  of  all  the  writings  which  the  ancient  world 
had  produced.  It  was  of  vital  importance,  before  any 
new  work  was  begun,  that  the  modern  world  should 
know  what  the  ancients  had  accomplished,  and  be  able 
to  begin  where  they  had  left  ofT.  This  preliminary  work 
of  collection  was  one  of  the  most  important  services  ren- 


376  MKDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

clerecl  by  the  men  of  the  revival  of  learning.  ITor  the 
writings  of  the  classic  authors  Petrarch  sought  with  the 
utmost  eagerness  wherever  he  had  an  opportunity,  and 
though  the  actual  number  which  he  was  able  to  find,  of 
those  that  had  not  been  known  to  some  one  or  other  in 
medieval  days,  was  very  small,  still  his  collection  was  a 
large  one  for, a  single  man  to  make,  and  he  opened  that 
active  search  for  the  classics  which  was  to  produce  such 
great  results  in  the  next  hundred  years. 

In  another  direction,  also,  Petrarch  opened  the  age  of 
the  Kenaissance.  The  great  scientific  advance  which 
Avas  made  by  this  age  over  the  middle  ages  does  not  con- 
sist so  much  in  any  actual  discoveries  or  new  contribu- 
tions to  knowledge  which  were  made  by  it,  as  in  the 
overthrow  of  authority  as  a  final  appeal,  and  the  recov- 
ery of  criticism  and  observation  and  comparison  as  the 
effective  methods  of  work.  Far  more  important  was  this 
restoration  of  the  true  method  of  science  than  any  speci- 
fic scientific  work  which  was  done  in  the  Renaissance  age 
proper.  Here  again  it  is  with  Petrarch  that  the  modern 
bQgan.  He  attacked  mor6  than  one  old  tradition  and 
belief  supported  by  authority  with  the  new  weapons  of 
criticism  and  comparison,  and  ia  one  case  at  least,  in  his 
investigation  of  the  genuineness  of  charters  purporting  to 
have  been  granted  by  Julius  Cassar  and  Nero  to  Austria, 
he  showed  himself  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  spirit 
and  master  of  .the  methods  of  modem  science. 

Finall}^,  Petrarch  first  put  the  modern  spirit  into  con- 
scious opposition  to  the  medieval.  The  Eenaissance 
meant  rebellion  and  revolution.  It  meant  -a  long  and 
l)itter  struggle  against  the  whole  scholastic  system,  and 
all  the  follies  and  superstitions  which  flourished  under 
its  protection.  Petrarch  opened  the  attack  along  the 
whole  line.  Physicians,  lawyers,  astrologers,  scholastic 
philosophers,  the  universities— all  were  enemies  of  the 


THE   RENAISSANCK  377 

new  learning,  and  so  his  enemies.  And  these  attacks 
were  not  in  set  and  formal  polemics  alone,  his  letters 
and  almost  all  his  writings  were  filled  with  them.'  It  was 
the  business  of  his  life.  He  knew  almost  nothing  of 
Plato,  and  yet  he  set  him  up  boldly  against  the  almost 
infallible  Aristotle.  He  called  the  uniyersities  "nests 
of  gloomy  ignorance,"  and  ridiculed  their  degrees.  He 
says :  "  The  youth  ascends  the  platform  mumbling  no- 
body knows  what.  The  elders  applaud,  the  bells  ring, 
the  trumpets  blare,  the  degree- is  conferred,  and  he  de- 
scends a  wise  man  who  went  up  a  fool."  ^ 

In  the  world  of  the  new  literature  Petrarch  obtained 
so  great  glory  in  his  own  lifetime,  and  exercised  such  a 
dictatorship  that  the  ideas  which  he  represented  obtained 
an  influence  and  extension  which  they  might  not  other- 
wise perhaps  have  gained  so  rapidly.  AVhen  he  died,  in 
13,74,  the  Renaissance  was  fully  under  way  in  Italy  as  a 
general  movement,  and,  while  in  his  own  lifetime  there 
is  hardly  another  who  "is  to  be  placed  beside  him  in 
scholarship  and  knowledge  of  antiquity,  there  soon  were 
many  such,  and  before  very  long  not  a  few  who  greatly 
surpassed  him  in  these  respects.  But  if  his  scholarship 
cannot  be  considered  great  according  to  modern  stand- 
ards, it  will  always  remain  his  imperishable  glory  to 
have  inaugurated  the  revival  of  learning.' 

The  next  age  immediately  following  Petrarch  had  for 
its  great  work  the  revival  of  Greek  literature  and  knowl- 
edge, taught  by  Greeks  from  Constantinople.  It  con- 
tinued, also,  the  work  of  collecting  and  carefully  study- 

'  Voigt,  Wiederbelebuny  das  Classischea  Alierthutas,  Vol.  I.,  p.  73. 

"MuUiuger,  Universiti/  of  Cumhridcje,  Vol.  I.,  p.  382,  note  2. 

■  Voigt.  one  of  the  soundest  and  most  carefnl  of  all  students  of  Renais- 
sance history,  says  that  Petrarch's  name  shines  as  a  .star  of  the  fir.st 
magnitude  in  tlie  literary  and  intellectual  history  of  the  world,  and 
would  not  be  less  if  he  had  never  written  a  verse  in  the  Tuscan  lan- 
guage.— Die  Wiederbelebuny  des  Giassischeu  AUerthujiis,  1.,  p.  23. 


378  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOT^ 

ing  the  writings  of  the  ancients.  Before  the  middle  of 
the  fifteenth  century  the  material  in  hand,  both  of  the 
Latin  and  of  the  Greek  classics,  was  large  enough  and 
well  enough  understood  to  form  the  foundation  of  a  real 
scholarship  which  still  commands  respect. 

One  generation  later  still,  and  a  scholar,  in  the  mod- 
em sense,  appeared,  Laurentius  Valla.  There  are  many 
things  now  perfectly  familiar  which  he  did  not  know  ; 
he  had  all  the  pride  amd  insolence  and  hardly  disguised 
pagan  feeling  and  morals  of  the  typical  humanist ;  but 
in  spirit  and  methods  of  work  he  was  a  genuine  scholar, 
and  his  editions  lie  at  the  foundation  of  all  later  editorial 
work  in  the  case  of  more  than  one  classic  author,  and  of 
the  critical  study  of  the  New  Testament  as  well.  One 
piece  of  work  which  fell  to  him  made  more  noise  at  the 
time  than  these,  and  in  it  the  scholar  had  an  opportunity 
to  contribute  directly  to  the  political  movements  of  his 
time.  At  the  request  of  King  Alfonso  of  Naples  he 
subjected  the  so-called  Donation  of  Constantine  to  the 
tests  of  the  new  criticism  and  showed  its  historical  im- 
possibility to  the  con\'iction  of  the  world,  thus  depriving 
the  papacy  of  one  source  of  argument  in  support  of  its 
pretensions. 

Valla  was  still  living  when  the  invention  of  the  print- 
ing-press in  the  north  put  a  new  weapon  into  the  hands 
of  the  humanists,  and  enabled  them  to  bring  the  re- 
sults of  their  labors  to  bear  upon  a  vastly  wider  circle 
than  before.  The  gi'eat  results  of  this  invention  for  civi- 
lization are  to  be  found,  not  so  much  in  the  preservation 
as  in  the  cheapening  of  books,  and  the  popularizing  of 
the  metms  of  knowledge.  If  the  printing-press  reduced 
the  price  of  books  to  one-fifth  the  former  price,  as  it 
seems  to  have  done  before  it  had  been  in  operation  very 
long,  it  much  more  than  multiplied  by  five  the  number 
of  persons  who  could  OAvn  and  use  them.     Although  the 


THE   RENAISSANCE  379 

spread  of  piinting  tliroughont  Europe  was  slow  as  com- 
pared with  tlie  rate  of  moderu  times — an  invention  of 
similar  importance  to-daj  would  probably  get  into  use 
in  the  princii^al  places  of  the  world  within  a  year  or  two 
— it  was  rapid  for  the  middle  ages.  Invented,  apparent- 
ly, in  a  shape  at  least  to  be  called  really  printing,  about 
1450,  it  was  introduced  into  Italy  in  1465,  possibly 
slightly  earlier ;  into  France  and  Switzerland  in  1470, 
into  Holland  and  Belgium  in  1473,  into  Spain  in  1474, 
and  into  England  between  1474  and  1477.  By  1500  it 
was  in  use  in  eighteen  countries,  and  at  least  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty-six  places  had  printing-presses.  Venice 
alone  had  more  than  two  hundred,  and  three  thousand 
editions  had  been  printed  there. 

One  immediate  consequence  of  this  invention  Avas  that 
the  results  of  the  revival  of  learning,  its  new  spirit  of  in- 
dependence, and  its  methods  of  criticism,  could  no  longer 
be  confined  to  one  country  or  to  those  who  were  by  call- 
ing scholars.  They  spread  rapidl}^  throughout  Europe, 
afiected  large  masses  of  th.6  people  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  classics,  and  became  vital  forces  in  that  final  revolu- 
tion of  which  Luther's  work  forms  a  part. 

Up  to  nearly  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  hu- 
manistic movement  had  beeil  confined  almost  wholly  to 
Italy.  The  names  and  achievements  which  could  be 
claimed  by  any  other  country  were  very  few.  But  as  the 
century  drew  to  a  close  such  names  became  more  numer- 
ous out  of  Italy,  and  the  movement  passed  to  Europe  at 
large. 

Among  the  northern  nations  the  Renaissance  not 
merely  aroused  the  same  enthusiasm  for  antiquity  and 
the  same  eager  application,  in  various  directions,  of  the 
new  methods  of  study,  but  it  also  took  on  among  them  a 
far  more  earnest  and  practical  character  than  it  ever  had 
in  Italy.     Investigation  and  learning  ceased  to  be  so  en- 


;380  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tirely  ends  in  themselves  or  means  to  secure  personal 
glory,  but  were  put  to  tlie  service  of  answering  practical 
questions  and  meeting  popular  needs.  The  most  emi- 
nent representative  of  this  tendency,  and  th^  greatest 
scholar  of  the  Renaissance  age  proper,  was  Erasmus. 

Given  by  the  circumstances  of  his  ehil(^ood  .an  oppor- 
tunity to  devote  himself  to  study  from  an  early  age, 
Erasmus,  earnest  and  eager,  and  of  extraordinary  ability, 
made  remarkable  use  of  the  scanty  mteans  of  learning  at 
his  command  in  the  mona^ry  in  which  he  was  placed. 
A  little  later,  at  the  University  of  Paris,  in  spite  of  pov- 
erty, and  ill-health,  and  other  discouragements,  his  prog- 
ress was  still  more  rapid.  In  these  early  stages  of  his 
education  Laurentius  Valla  seems  to  have  had  more  in- 
fluence  over  him  than  anyone  else,  especially  in  training 
his  judgment  in  respect  to  a  correct  style,  a  training 
which  may  have  been  the  birth,  perhaps,  of  a  larger 
critical  sense.  At  the  age  of  thirty  he  went  over  to  Eng- 
land to  study  Greek  at  Oxford,  and  there  he  came  under 
the  influence  of  two  remarkable  men,  John  Colet  and 
Thomas  More,  and,  if  we  may  trust  our  scant}'  evidence, 
this  influence  was  very  important  in  the  development  of 
his  character  and  purposes,  especially  the  influence  of 
Colet." 

'  It  is  characteristic  of  Mr.  Seebohm's  very  stimulating  work  in  his- 
tory, like  that  of  M.  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  iu  France,  that  it  presents 
very  clearly  and  completely  the  line  of  connection  between  the  earlier 
and  the  later  stages  of  a  given  movement.  Meantime,  the  evidence  is 
often  slight,  and  while  opposing  evidence  may  be  wholly  wanting,  one 
cannot  escape  the  feeling  that  the  conclusions  are  sometimes  due  to 
keenness  of  historic  insight  rather  than  to  direct  induction.  This  is 
true  of  important  points  in  Mr.  Seebohms  Oxford  Reformers.  I  have 
chosen  to  follow  its  conclusions  because  they  seem  to  me,  on  the  whole, 
probable  ;  but  it  should  be  remembered  that  there  is  very  scanty  evi- 
dence to  prove  what  the  Oxford  reformers  imparted  to  Erasmus,  as  well 
as  to  show  what  Colet  gained  in  Italy.  Lupton's  Life  of  John  Colet  is  a 
very  sober  and  careful  work. 


THE   RENAISSANCE  381 

Colet  liad  gone  to  Italy  for  study  while  Erasmus  was 
at  Paris,  and  while  there,  apparently,  an  earnest  religious 
purpose  was  awakened  in  his  mind  by  some  influence 
under  which  he  came,  possibly  by  the  spiritualistic  phil- 
osophy of  Pico  della  Mirandola,  then  but  recently  dead, 
perhaps  by  some  other  of  the  Platonic  influences  of  that 
age,  more  likely  by  the  strong  outburst  of  religious  and 
ethical  emotion  in  Florence  under  the  influence  of  Sa- 
vonarola. We  know  so  little  of  Colet's  stay  in  Italy  that 
we  can  affirm  nothing  about  it  with  confidence,  and  it  is 
quite  as  probable  that  the  deeply  earnest  purpose  Avhicli 
he  displayed  in  his  work  on  his  return  was  natural  to 
him,  strengthened  perhaps  by  Italian  influences,  possi- 
bly as  much  by  a  repugnance  to  what  he  saw  there  as  by 
anything  directly  helpful. 

Upon  his  return  to  England  Colet  began  to  lecture 
upon  the  New  Testament,  with  a  distinctly  practical  pur- 
pose. He  sought,  for  example,  to  reproduce  the  thought 
of  Paul  as  Paul  held  it,  to  gain  an  understanding  of  it  by 
considering  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was  written, 
and  of  those  to  whom  it  was  written  ;  in  other  words,  to 
treat  it  as  a  living  argument,  with  a  definite  historical  pur- 
pose, and  so  to  make  clear  what  Paul  sought  to  teach. 
This  was  the  application  of  the  spirit  and  the  methods 
of  the  Renaissance  to  the  living  reconstruction  of  a  past 
age.  It  was  treating  the  New  Testament  as  a  historical 
document,  not  as  a  collection  of  scholastic  propositions. 
And  this  was  done  not  for  purposes  of  mere  scholarship, 
but  in  order  to  learn  what  that  age  had  to  give  in  the 
way  of  instruction  and  help,  and  to  reproduce,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  present,  the  spirit  and  ideas  of  the  early 
Christianity. 

The  carrying  out  of  such  a  purpose  was,  in  the  end, 
whether  as  a  result  of  Colet's  influence  or  not,  the  great 
work  of  Erasmus's  life.     His  ambition  was  to  put  the 


382  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

documents  of  primitive  Christianity,  the  New  Testament 
I  and  the  early  fathers,  in  carefully  prepared  editions,  that 
is,  as  nearly  as  possible  exactly  as  they  were  written,  in 
the  hands  of  all  men,  so  that  they  could  judge  for  them- 
selves what  the  primitive  Christianity  was.  T^e  idea 
that  the  only  true  method  of  reaching  a  "-knowledge  of 
Christianity  was  to  go  to  the  original  Sources  of  that 
knowledge,  itself  a  direct  result  of  the. revival  of  learning, 
was  constantly  in  his  mind  after  he  began  his  real  work, 
and  he  expresses  it  over  and  over  -again,  with  varying  de- 
grees of  clearness.  If  anyone  wants  to  know  what  Chris- 
tianity is,  he  says,  in  effect,  what  Christ  taught,  what  Paul 
taught,  what  the  Christianity  was  of  those  who  founded 
it,  let  him  not  go  to  the  schoolmen  or  the  theologian. 
He  cannot  be  sure  that  they  represent  it  truly.  Let  him 
go  directly  to  the  New  Testament.  There  he  will  get  it 
plainly  and  simply,  so  plainly  that  all  men  can  see  and 
understand  exactly  what  it  was. 

His  first  step  in  this  work  was  to  publish,  in  1505,  an 
edition  of  Valla's  Annotations,  his  criticism  of  the  A^ul- 
gate,  with  a  prefatory  letter  of  his  own.  Then,  in  1516, 
was  published  the  first  edition  of  his  own  New  Testa- 
ment, with  revised  Greek  text,  new  Latin  translation, 
and  critical  notes,  in  which  he  defended  his  variations 
from  the  Yulgate,  and  called  attention  to  interesting 
featui-es  of  the  early  Christianity  which  he  thought 
needed  present  emphasis.^     This  passed  through  five  au- 

'  The  objections  wliicli  -svere  made  by  the  conservatives  to  Erasmus's 
critical  study  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the  answers  which  he  made 
are  interesting  in  view  of  recent  phases  of  the  same  conflict.  They  may 
he  read  in  Seebolim.  One  monk  writes  him :  "  In  very  deed,  my  dear 
Erasmus,  there  is  great  harm  in  [pointing  out  discrepancies  between  the 
Greek  and  Latin  copies].  Because,  about  this  matter  of  the  integrity  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures  many  will  dispute,  many  will  doubt,  if  they  learn 
that  even  one  jot  or  tittle  in  them  is  false,  .  .  .  and  then  will  come 
to  pass  what  Augustine  described  to  Jerome  :   '  If  any  error  shouki  be 


THE   KEXAISSANCE  ~         383 

tborized,  and  a  few  pirated,  editions  in  his  own  lifetime, 
and  sold  in  thousands  of  copies  all  over  Europe.  Be- 
sides his  work  ©n  the  New  'J'estament  he  prepared  edi- 
tions of  a  very  large  number  of  the  early  fathers  of  the 
church. 

While  n(r  doubt  the  special  object  in  everything  that 
Erasmus  undertook  was  to  do  a  genuine  piece  of  scien- 
tific "wqrk,  still  Ithe  distinctly  reformatory  purpose  in  it 
'  all  is  e'^ddent.  He  wished  to  show  men  what  the  primi- 
tive Christianity  was,  and  so  to  induce  them  to  reject  the 
abuses  and  corruptions  which  passed  under  its  name.  It 
will  be  evident,  however,  when  we  come  to  take  up  the 
Reformation  that  this  reformatory  purpose  of  his  was 
not  of  the  same  soii;  as  Luther's,  and  that  he  could  not 
have  followed  his  lead.^ 

admitted  to  have  crept  into  the  Holy  Scriptures,  what  authority  would 
be  left  to  them.'  " — {Oxford  Reformers,  p.  31G,  third  edition. )  Dr.  Eck, 
Luther's  opponent,  "  objected  ...  to  the  method  of  Biblical  criti- 
cism which  it  adopted  throughout.  He  objected  to  the  suggestion  it 
contained,  that  the  Apostles  quoted  the  Old  Testament  from  memory, 
and,  therefore,  not  alwaj-s  correctly.  He  objected  to  the  insinuation 
that  their  Greek  was  colloquial,  and  not  strictly  classical."  Erasmus 
replied  "that  in  his  judgment,  the  authority  of  the  whole  Scriptures 
would  not  fall  with  any  slip  of  memory  on  the  part  of  an  Evangelist 
— e.g..  if  he  put  '  Isaiah '  by  mistake  for  '  Jeremiah  ' — because  no  point 
of  importance  turns  upon  it.  We  do  not  forthwith  think  evil  of  the 
whole  life  of  Peter  because  Augustine  and  Ambrose  aflSrm  that  even 
after  he  had  received  the  Holy  Ghost  he  fell  iuto  error  on  .some  points  ; 
and  so  onr  faith  is  not  altogether  shaken  in  a  whole  book  because  it  has 
some  defects."— (Ibid.,  pp.  435-436.) 

'  Every  reform  naovement  produces  two  classes  of  reformers,  each 
seeking,  perhaps,  the  same  ultimate  end,  but  differing  widely  as  to 
means.  One  believes  that  the  reformation  is  to  be  successfully  obtained 
only  by  remaining  within  the  old  organization  and  reforming  from  with- 
in out.  The  other  believes  that  the  old  is  too  set  in  its  ways  to  be  re- 
formed by  conservative  methods  and  by  arguing,  and  that  the  only  suc- 
cessful way  is  rebellion,  or  even  revolirtion.  It  cannot  be  affirmed  that 
it  is  so.  without  exception,  but  it  is  at  least  usual  in  history,  certainly 
where  the  abuses  are  deeply  seated  and  where  the  reform  has  been  carried 


384  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

Tile  fact  that  Luther,  during  this  time  was  moved  also 
by  the  same  coutrolling  idea  as  Erasmus,  and  cherished 
the  same  wish  to  restore  a  truer  Christianity,  and  that  he 
came  upon  this  thought  independently,  does  not  make 
the  contribution  of  Erasmus  to  the  final  success  of 
Luther's  reform  any  less  important.  The  idea  of  the 
necessity  of  an  appeal  to  the  original  sources  of  knowl- 
edge was  in  the  air,  as  an  essential  part  of  the  Renais- 
sance age.  In  relation  to  Christianity,  it  was  absolutely 
certain  that  this  apjjeal  would  be  taken,  and  the  results 
of  it  be  made  clear  to  the  minds  of  common  joeople  as. 
well  as  to  the  learned.  This  Luther  did.  But  he  could 
liardly  have  done  his  -work,  certainly  not  so  well,  but  for 
Erasmus.  Erasmus's  work  not  merely  helped  to  arduse 
and  make  general  the  idea  of  such  an  appeal,  hv^  it  also 
put  into  Luther's  hand,  prepared  for  use,  the  material 
which  he  needed  for  his  argument.-  •  Luther  was  the  revo- 
lutionary leader,  Erasmus  the  scholar. 

In  the  connection  established  with  the  Reformation  is 
to  be  found  one  of  the  ways  in  which  the  Renaissance 
movement  became  an  important  force  in  the  other  great 
movements  of  the  time,  *  and  passed  into  the  general 
revolution — social,  political,  and  religious — with  jvhich 
modern  history  opened.  One  other  gf  its  dii-ect  results 
brings  it  into  close  connection  with  oui-  own  time  as 
opening  one  of  the  lines  of  our  greatest  advance. 

The  application  to  the  natural  and  physical  sciences 
of  the  new  methods  of  investigation  which  the  .Renais- 
sance had  brought  into  use  was  not  made  so  early  as-^t 
had  been  to  the  sciences  of  historical  and  philological 

tlirongh  at  all,  tliat  the  rebels,  the  radical  reformers  have  been  those  to 
do  it,  whether  by  the  siiceess  of  their  revolutiou,  or,  very  likely  as  often, 
by  its  defeat.  Erasmus  belonged  to  tlie  conservative  reformers,  to  the 
reformers  from  within,  and,  leaving  aside  all  theological  differences  be- 
tween them,  it  was  entirely  impossible  that  he  should  follow  Luther. 


THE    RENAISSANCE  385 

criticism.  In  these  latter  fields  the  work  of  positive  ad- 
vance had  already  begun,  while  the  sciences  of  nature 
were  still  mainly  engaged  in  collecting  and  recovering 
the  facts  known  to  the  ancients,  the  work  which  Petrarch 
and  the  generation  following  him  represent  for  classical 
scholarship.  But  the  first  great  step  of  modern  science, 
and  one  of  the  greatest  ever  taken  in  the  importance  of  its 
results,  the  Copernican  theory  of  the  solar  system,  falls 
legitimately  within  the  history  of  the  Renaissance,  though 
Copernicus  did  not  publish  his  conclusions  until  1543. 

In  l;iis  dedicatory  epistle  to  Pope  Paul  III. ,  Copernicus 
describes  the  almost  ideally  perfect  scientific  method 
which  he  had  followed  in  his  work.  This  method  he 
may  have  learned  in  Italy,  where  he  studied  about  ten 
years,  going  there  in  1496,  probably  the  year  in  which 
Colet  returned  to  England.  He  notes,  as  the  first  step, 
his  dissatisfaction  with  the  old  theory,  then  his  search  of 
ancient  literature  to  see  if  another  theory  had  been  pro- 
posed, his  reflection  upon  the  suggestion  which  he  found 
there  until  it  assumed  the  form  of  a  definite  theory,  the 
years  of  observation  in  which  he  tested  the  theory  by 
the  facts,  and  finally  the  order  and  harmony  to  which 
the  facts  observed  were  reduced  by  the  theory.^  From 
the  great  advance  thus  made  by  Copernicus  the  progress 
of  astronomy  has  been  constant  and  rapid,  and  the  other 
sciences  were  not  far  behind.. 

In  following  down  the  main  thread  of  intellectual  work 
which  runs  through  the  age  of  the  Renaissance,  we  have 
passed  over  various  facts  of  interest  in  themselves,  and 
perhaps  as  characteristic  of  it  as  those  which  have  been 
mentioned,  and  of  some  -bearing  u])on  later  times,  but 
which  can  now  receive  but  slight  notice. 


'•See  The  Yale  Review,  Vol.  I.,  p.  100,  note  2,  for  a  traiislatiou  of  this 
part  of  his  letter. 
25 


I 


386  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOIS- 

Of  value  in  illustration  of  tlie  perpetual  conflict  be- 
twi>ou  the  old  and  the  new,  if  we  could  go  into  the  de- 
tails of  it,  would  be  the  struggle  of  the  new  methods  of 
study  and  their  results  for  a  place  in  the  universities 
and  for  general  acceptance.  The  universities  held  them- 
selves obstinately  closed  to  the  new  methods  long  after 
they  had  achieved  brilliant  results  outside  their  walls. 
When  admission  was  at  last  grudgingly  alloAved  a  few 
representatives  of  the  new  learning,  it  was  accompanied 
with  many  petty  slights  and  indignities — inaugural  ad- 
dresses were  required  to  be  submitted  for  examination 
before  delivery,  the  use  of  the  library  was  denied,  a  share 
in  the  government  of  the  university  was  refused,  or,  as 
we  should  say,  the  right  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the 
faculty,  or  no  place  was  given  the  new  studies  in  the 
schedule  of  lecture  hours.  The  church,  so  bound  up 
with  the  scholastic  system,  came  to  its  defence.  Greek 
was  judged  a  heretical  tongue.  No  one  should  lecture 
on  the  New  Testament,  it  was  declared,  without  a  pre- 
vious theological  examination.  It  was  held  to  be  heresy 
to  say  the  Greek  or  Hebrew  text  reads  thus,  or  that  a 
knowledge  of  the  original  languages  is  necessary  to  in- 
terpret the  Scripture  correctly. 

But  all  the  forces  that  make  history  were  with  the  new, 
and  it  could  not  be  held  back.  The  opening  years  of 
the  sixteenth  century  resounded  with  the  noise  of  its  at- 
tack, now  assured  of  victory,  and  led  by  Erasmus  and 
Ulricli  Yon  Hutten  and  others  of  almost  equal  name. 
But  hardly  had  the  new  learning  obtained  possession  of 
the  universities  before  it  degenerated  into  a  scholasticism 
of  its  own  almost  as  barren  as  the  old.  Cicero  became 
as  great  a  di^dnity  as  Aristotle,  and  the  letter  far  out- 
weighed the  spirit.  When  a  new  age  of  great  scientific 
advance  came  on,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  the  new 
ideas  of  that  time,  led  by  Descartes  and  Leibnitz  and 


THE   RENAISSANCE  387 

Locke  and'Newton,  had  -the  same  old  battle  to  fight  over 
again.  ^ 

Of  equal  interest  is  the  marked  sceptical  tendency 
which  accompanied  the  Kenaissance,  especially  in  Italy, 
and  which  would  seem  to  be  an  almost  inevitable  attend- 
ant of  times  of  intellectual  progress.  The  unsettling  of 
so  many  old  beliefs,  some  of  them  ap^oarently  closely 
bound  up  with  the  Christian  teaching,  tended  to  unsettle 
all,  and  to  produce  a  dispassionate  and  intellectual  scep- 
ticism which  in  the  Eenaissance  age  is  to  be  carefully 
distinguished  from  the  emotional  and  aesthetic  abandon- 
ment of  Christian  ethics  which  was  also  characteristic 
of  the  time.  Gemistos  Pletho,  in  the  middle  of  the  fif- 
teenth century,  stated  his  belief  that  men  were  about  to 
abandon  Christianity  for  some  form  of  paganism,  and 
Pomponazzi  said,  about  1520,  that  religions  have  their 
day  of  ine\itable  decline  and  Christianity  is  no  excep- 
tion to  the  general  rule,  and  that  signs  could  be  dis- 
cerned at  that  time  of  approaching  dissolution  in  the 
fabric  of  our  creed.^  With  this  may  be  compared,  per- 
haps, Voltaire's  remark,  that  Christianity  would  not  sur- 
vive the  nineteenth  century. 

A  single  paragraph  is  so  utterly  inadequate  a  space  to 
give  to  the  product  of  the  Kenaissance  age  in  the  fine 
arts,  that  all  mention  of  it  will  be  omitted  except  to 
notice  one  fact,  which  is  especially  important  from  our 
point  of  \dew,  the  fine  expression  which  it  gives  to  the 

1  The  scholastic  tendency  and  habit  are  things  extremely  hard  to  work 
out  of  civilization,  or  more  accurately,  perhaps,  extremely  hard  to  bring 
into  their  proper  place.  Absorption  in  the  process,  and  in  the  imme- 
diate and  minute  result,  is  something  almost  impossible  to  resist,  be- 
cause of  the  keen  enjoyment  which  comes  from  successful  investiga- 
tion, hut  if  yielded  to  it  is  a  fearful  bondage,  and  has  ruined  more 
promising  intellectual  beginnings  than  all  the  logical  fallacies  com- 
bined. 

'  Symonds,  Italian  Literattire,  Vol.  II.,  p.  477. 


388  MEDIEVAL   CTVILTZATIOTC 

leading  thouglit  of  the  Kenaissance,  that  which  is  often 
called  "  the  discovery  of  man  " — the  supremacy  of  man 
over  nature — the  power  and  grace  and  beauty  of  the  ideal 
nature  above  and  beyond  mere  physical  beauty.  And  the 
value  of  this  expression  as  a  true  exponent  of  the  Ee- 
uaissance  age  lies  largely  in  the  fact  that  it  was  uncon- 
scious. 

Other  characteristic  products  of  the  Eenaissance  age 
are  also  of  great  interest ;  its  morals,  or  rather  its  want 
of  morals,  its  calm  and  unconscious  immorality,  and  often 
brutality,  united  with  high  aesthetic  culture,  of  which  we 
have  so  remarkable  a  photograph  in  the  autobiography 
of  Cellini,  to  which  some  would  add  the  Prince  of  Machi- 
avelli.  But  Machiavelli  is  one  of  the  typical  men  of  the 
time  in  more  ways  than  one.  He  unites  in  himself  at 
least  two  of  its  most  marked  tendencies,  the  political  and 
the  scientific,  marvellous  both  for  the  ideal  of  a  united 
Italian  nation,  which  seems  to  be  the  mainspring  of  his 
thought,  and  for  the  example  which  he  gives  us  of  the 
calmness  and  total  absence  of  feeling  with  which  a  purely 
scientific  mind  dissects  a  diseased  organ  in  a  living  body. 

The  geographical  explorations  of  the  age  belong  part- 
ly to  the  history  of  commerce  and  have  been  considered 
there,  but  in  certain  aspects  of  them,  represented  best 
perhaps  by  Columbus,  they  are  peculiarly  the  results  of 
the  Kenaissance  forces,  and  deserve  extended  notice  here 
both  as  an  outgrowth  of  the  age  and  as  an  essential  fac- 
tor in  its  influence  upon  the  future. 

The  belief  that  the  earth  is  round  had  never  been  en- 
tirely forgotten.  It  was  clearly  and  explicitly  taught  by 
the  ancient  scientists,  and,  though  in  the  times  of  super- 
stition and  darkness  a  popular  belief  that  the  earth  is 
flat  did  come  to  prevail,  it  was  never  held  even  in  those 
days  by  men  who  had  any  trace  of  knowledge  at  all, 
or  did  any  thinking  on  the  more  simple   facts   of  as- 


THE   RENAISSANCE  389 

tronomy.  With  the  growth  of  a  more  general  knowl- 
edge of  antiquity,  as  a  result  of  the  revival  of  learning, 
the  ancient  views  began  to  prevail  again.  In  1410  Peter 
d'Ailly  had  collected  the  opinions  of  the  ancients  on  the 
subject  with  an  occasional  opinion  from  a  medieval 
source,  like  Roger  Bacon,  in  his  book  called  Imago 
Jfundi,  a  book  which  was  much  read  and  seems  to  have 
had  a  decided  influence  upon  Columbus.  Probably  a 
still .  earlier  and  more  decisive  influence  upon  him  was 
that  exerted  by  the  great  Italian  scientist  of  the  time,  Tos- 
cannelli,  who  wrote  him,  in  1474:,.  a  very  interesting  letter 
calling  his  attention  in  the  clearest  way  to  the  possibil- 
ities which  lay  in  a  voj^age  to  the  west.^  Toscannelli's 
ideas,  however,  were  based,  like  Peter  d'Ailly's,  upon  a 
study  of  the  ancients.  These  views,  derived  from  the 
ancient  science,  were  confirmed  in  Columbus's  mind  by 
some  facts  of  observation  which  he  had  gathered  from 
various  sources,  stories  of  sailors,  traditions,  and  other 
things  of  the  sort,  which  tended  to  show  the  existence  of 
land  to  the  west. 

These  facts  make  it  evident  then,  that,  just  as  in  the 
case  of  the  first  great  step  in  advance  in  physical  science, 
Copernieus's  theory  of  the  solar  system,  so  also  in  the 
first  great  enlargement  of  our  practical  knowledge  of  the 
earth  itself,  the  new  progress  takes  its  departure  from  a 
revived  knowledge  of  what  the  ancient  world  had  learned, 
and  that  the  modern  science  rests  upon  the  ancient. 

But  not  merely  in  his  sources  of  knowledge  was  Colum- 
bus a  child  of  the  Renaissance.  He  was  still  more  clearly 
so  in  the  spirit  which  moved  and  sustained  him. 

The  thing  which  was  especially  new  and  original  with 
him,  and  which  led  to  his  great  success,  was  not  his 
knowledge  of  the  scientific  facts.     The  whole  scientific 

'  A  translation  of  this  letter  is  given  in  Fiske's  JJincovery  of  America, 
Vol.  I.,  p.  356,  and  the  original  in  an  appendix. 


390  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

world  of  his  time  believed  in  these  as  thoroughly  as  he 
did.  But  it  was  this,  that,  believing  in  the  truth  of  the 
scientific  conclusion,  he  dared  to  act  upon  that  belief ;  it 
w^as  his  strong  and  unwavering  self-confidence  and  daring 
which  carried  him  through  to  the  end.  In  this  he  was  \ 
entirely  a  modern  man.  But  it  is  necessary  to  remem- 
ber that  no  modern  explorer  of  Central  Africa  or  of  the 
polar  lands  has  needed  to  be  quite  so  daring,  or  to  have 
so  obstinate  a  spirit,  of  determination  and  pluck  and 
willingness  to  meet  the  unexpected  and  overcome  it. 
The  modern  man  has  a  sort  of  confidence  in  the  validity 
of  science  which  was  not  possible  for  Columbus,  and,  a 
thing  which  is  still  more  to  the  point,  he  has  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  probable  dangers  which  he  will  have  to  face, 
such  as  Columbus  could  not  have.  ' 

In  Columbus  the  Benaissance  age  is  seen  not  only  to 
have  reoovei>ed  the  knowledge  upon  which  a  new  progress 
could  be  founded,  but  also  it  had  produced  the  new  spirit; 
the  fii'm  confidence  of  man  in  his  own  powers  and  in  his 
mastery  of  nature,  which  was  both  to  discover  a  new  world 
in  geography  and  to  create  a  new  world  in  ideas.  Hardly 
any  man,  indeed,  who  lived  in  those  days  is  so  complete 
a  representative  of  the  age  as  Columbus.  It  was  a  mixed 
age,  old  and  new  mingled  together  in  strange  proportions 
and  motley  results ;  old  superstitions  and  medieval  ideas 
side  by  side  with  scientific  criticism  and  modern  beliefs. 
And  so  it  was  in  the  case  of  Columbus.  He  w^as  a  mod- 
ern man  with  a  strong  faith  in  tlie  results  of  science  and 
a  vigorous  self-reliance.  But  he  was  also  a  medieval 
man,  holding  to  the  scholastic  theology,  believing  that 
the  prophets  speciticall}'  foretold  his  entei-prise,  and  ap- 
parently led  to  his  undertaking  quite  as  much  by  the 
desire  to  get  the  means  for  a  new  crusade  to  rescue  the 
Holy  Sepulchie  us  by  scientific  or  commercial  motives. 

The  effects  of  Columbus's  expedition  were  not  confined 


THE    RENAISSANCE  391 

to  science  or  to  commerce.  It  was  a  most  revolutionary 
discovery,  and  its  intellectual  results  were  as  great  as  its 
practical  ones.  Tliey  were,  perhaps,  greater  than  those 
which  have  followed  any  other  discovery  of  the  sort. 
With  them  can  be  compared  only  the  enlargement  of 
mind  which  followed  such  scientific  events  as  Newton's 
discoveries,  or,  in  the  present  century,  Lyell's  proof  of 
the  geologic  ages,  or  Darwin's  explanation  of  the  method 
of  creation. 

Other  events  of  the  same  sort  combined  to  produce  the 
same  character  of  mind  and  to  make  it  the  prevailing 
intellectual  tone  of  the  times — the  explorations  of  the 
Portuguese,  the  invention  of  printing,  the  discoveries  of 
new  classical  material;  the  wdde  enlargement  of  the  field 
of  historical  knowledge,  and  the  overthrow  of  old  beliefs 
in  every  direction.  These  events  led  not  merely  to  a 
rapid  broadening  of  thought  and  mental  experience,  but 
also  to  a  hospitality  toward  new  ideas  which  is  \3harac- 
teristically  modern. 

The  intellectual  atmosphere  which  the  Renaissance 
produced,  and  which  was  an  essential  prerequisite  of 
the  Kefo^'mation,  can  be  compared,  indeed,  to  nothing  so 
well  as  to  that  of  our  ow^n  century.  In  spirit,  in  ambi- 
tions, and  in  methods,  in  openness  of  mind  and  in  expec- 
tation of  a  greater  futui'e  it  was  the  same.  The  obstruc- 
tive conservatism  with  which  it  had  to  contend  was 
identical  with  that  of  to-day,  and  the  same  weapons  were 
in  use  on  both  sides.  In  actual  attainment  and  insight, 
of  course,  it  was  not  the  same.  The  conditions  were 
more  narrow  and  the  tools  it  had  to  work  Avith  were  far 
inferior.  But  that  is  a  fact  of  relatively  little  importance, 
and  if  we  would  gain  a  right  understanding  of  the  age, 
and  of  its  permanent  contributions  to  history,  Ave  can  do 
it  best,  perhaps,  by  comparing  it,  under  its  own  condi- 
tions, with  the  spirit  and  work  of  to-day. 


CHAPTEE   XVI. 

THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE 


In  the  tenth  chapter  we  follow^ecl  the  conflict  between 
the  chiu'ch  aud  the  empire  to  its  close  in  the  thirteenth 
century.  The  papacy  had  come  out  of  that  conflict  ap- 
parently victorious  over  its  only  rival.  Frederick  II.  had 
failed,  and  no  new  emperor  had  arisen  to  take  his  place 
Avith  a  power  which  could  be  atnxU  dangerous  to  the 
pope's. 

But  at  the  moment  of  this  victory  a  new  enemy  ap- 
peared in  the  field.  The  growth  of  commerce,  and  the 
other  results  which  followed  from  the  crusades,  had 
already  changed  the  character  of  the  age,  and  the  general 
attitude  of  mind  toward  the  papacy.  It  had  raised  the 
general  level  of  intelligence  and  created  a  new  feeling  of 
individual  self-reliance  in  large  portions  of  the  popula- 
tion, even  before  the  age  of  the  revival  of  learning  proper. 
The  gradual  organization  of  the  modern  nations,  and 
their  progress,  step  by  step,  towards  definite  constitu- 
tions ajad  true  national  life,  had  been  accompanied  with  a 
growth  of  the  spirit  of  political  independence,  and  the  be- 
ginnings, at  least,  of  a  genuine  feeling  of  patriotism.  It 
was  impossible  for  the  political  and  intellectual  world, 
which  was  forming   under  these  influences,  and  which 

'See  Poole,  WycUffe  and  Movements  for  Rfforui.  and,  Oeigliton,  His 
tory  of  the  Papacy  duriny  tJie  Period  of  the  lieformaiion,  Vols.  I. 
aud  11. 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW    AGE  393 

was  animated  by  this  new  spirit,  to  submit  tamely  to 
those  pretensions  of  imiversal  political  supervision  which 
had  been  asserted  by  Gregory  VII.  and  by  Innocent  III. 
and  which  the  papacy  still  claimed  in  even  more  extreme 
language. 

Isolated  cases,  due  to  these  new  influences,  of  a  more 
or  less  determined  resistance  to  these  pretensions  are 
scattered  through  the  thirteenth  century  in  the  history  of 
various  states,  and,  in  the  case  of  exceptionall}^  strong 
states  or  sovereigns,  are  to  be  found  even  in  the  twelfth. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  occurred  an  instance 
of  this  resistance  which  became  of  universal  importance, 
and  which,  in  the  final  consequences  that  followed  from 
it,  united  all  the  new  forces  of  the  time  in  a  grand  attack 
upon  the  papacy,  to  destroy  its  political  power,  and  even 
to  change  the  character  of  its  ecclesiastical  rule.  This 
was  the  conflict  between  PhilijD  the  Fair  of  France,  and 
Pope  Boniface  YIII. 

Boniface  VIII.  was  elected  pope  in  1294,  after  he  had 
procured  by  his  intrigues  the  abdication  of  the  weak  and 
unworldly  Celestin  V.  He  was  a  man  of  exactly  opposite 
character — hasty  and  obstinate,  and  with  the  most  ex- 
treme views  of  the  rights  of  the  papacy  over  aU  other 
powers  in  the  world.  Opportunities  were  offered  him, 
one  after  another,  for  the  actual  assertion  of  these  rights 
in  almost  every  country  of  Europe,  and  if  he  could  have 
carried  through  successfully  the  things  which  he  at- 
tempted, the  papal  empire  would  have  existed  in  reality. 

England  and  France  were,  at  the  time,  in  the  midst  of 
that  interminable  series  of  wars  which  grew  out  of  the 
attempts  of  the  French  kings  to  absorb  in  their  growing 
state  the  territories  of  their  independent  vassals,  of  which 
the  kings  of  England  held  so  large  a  share.  Philip  IV., 
the  Fair,  was  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  Capetian  kings  who 
were  carrying  on  this  inherited  policy,  and,  at  the  same 


394  MEDIEVAL    CIVILIZATION" 

time,  one  of  the  most  unscrupulous  and  determined. 
The  necessities  of  the  war  compelled  both  him  and  Ed- 
ward I.  of  England  to  demand  taxes  from  the  clergy  of 
their  kingdoms  in  a  more  regular  way  than  had  ever  been 
done  before.  It  was  near  the  time,  as  we  know,  of  the 
completion  of  that  economic  revolution  which  substituted 
money  for  cruder  forms  of  payment  in  produce  and  ser- 
vices. Taxation  was  consequently  beginning  to  assume 
a  great  importance  among  the  resources  of  a  state.  The 
clergy,  exempt  by  universal  consent,  in  view  of  their 
religious  services  to  the  state,  from  personal  military  ser- 
vice, had  insisted,  also,  upon  an  exemption  from  taxation 
unless  the  tax  were  specially  sanctioned  by  themselves  or 
by  the  pope.  But  the  large  proportion  of  the  landed 
wealth  of  the  country  which  was  in  their  hands  made  the 
question  of  their  submission,  like  the  other  classes,  to 
the  independent  taxing  power  of  the  state,  a  very  serious 
one  for  the  new  governments,  especially  for  one  which 
was  endeavoring  to  attain  independence  of  the  feudal 
nobles,  and  neither  Philip  nor  Edward  was  disposed  to 
allow  this  exemption.  Boniface  YIIL,  appealed  to  by 
some  of  the  clergy  in  support  of  their  rights,  issued  his 
bull,  "  Clericis  laicos,"  in  which,  in  the  strongest  terms, 
he  forbade  any  prince  or  state  to  collect  any  unauthorized 
taxes  from  the  clergy,  and  commanded  all  prelates  to  re- 
sist such  extortion  to  the  utmost. 

The  struggle  with  Philip,  begun  in  this  way,  involved 
before  its  close  more  than  one  other  point  concerning  the 
right  of  the  pope  to  interfere  in  the  internal  affairs  of 
the  state.  They  were  the  old  claims  of  the  papacy 
pushed  to  an  extreme  point.  The  bull,  "  Unam  Sanc- 
tam,"  issued  in  1302,  gives  expression  in  the  fullest  and 
plainest  terms  to  the  theory  of  papal  supremacy  and  the 
grounds  on  which  it  was  made  to  rest.  It  says  :  "  When 
the  apostles  said,  '  Behold  here  are  two  swords ! '     .    .    . 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW    AGE  395 

the  Lord  did  not  reply  that  this  was  too  much,  but 
enough.  Surely  he  who  denies  that  the  temporal  sword 
is  in  the  power  of  Peter  wrongly  interprets  the  word  of 
the  Lord  when  He  says  :  '  Put  up  thy  sword  in  its  scab- 
bard.' Both  swords,  the  spiritual  and  the  material,  there- 
fore, are  in  the  power  of  the  church  ;  the  one,  indeed,  to 
be  wielded  for  the  church,  the  other  by  the  church ;  the 
one  by  the  hand  of  the  priest,  the  other  by  the  hand  of 
kings  and  knights,  but  at  the  will  and  sufferance  of  the 
priest."  ..."  For,  the  truth  bearing  witness,  the 
spiritual  power  has  to  establish  the  earthly  power,  and 
to  judge  it  if  it  be  not  good.  Thus  concerning  the 
church  and  the  ecclesiastical  power  is  verified  the  proph- 
ecy of  Jeremiah :  '  See,  I  have  this  day  set  thee  over  the 
nations  and  over  the  kingdoms,'  and  the  other  things 
which  follow.  Therefore  if  the  earthly  power  err  it  shall 
be  judged  by  the  spiritual  power  ;  but  if  the  lesser 
spiritual  power  err,  by  the  greater.  But  if  the  greatest, 
it  can  be  judged  by  God  alone,  not  by  man,  the  apostle 
bearing  wdtness.  A  spiritual  man  judges  all  things,  but 
he  himself  is  judged  by  no  one.  This  authority,  more- 
over, even  though  it  is  given  to  man  and  exercised 
through  man,  is  not  human  but  rather  divine,  being  given 
by  divine  lips  to  Peter  and  founded  on  a  rock  for  him 
and  his  successors  through  Christ  himself,  whom  he  has 
confessed  ;  the  Lord  himself  saying  to  Peter  :  '  Whatso- 
ever thou  shalt  bind,'  etc.  Whoever,  therefore,  resists 
this  power,  thus  ordained  by  God,  resists  the  ordination 
of  God."  .  .  .  "Indeed  we  declare,  announce,  and 
define,  that  it  is  altogether  necessary  to  salvation  for 
every  human  creature  to  be  subject  to  the  Roman  pon- 
tiff." ' 

There  was  nothing  particularly  new  in  these  preten- 

'  Translation  of  Henderson,  Ilist.  Docs,  of  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  435, 
where,  also,  a  translation  of  tlie  bull  "Clericis  laicos"  may  be  found 


306  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

sions.  They  had  been  maintained  by  the  church  for  the 
last  two  hundred  years.  But  they  were  expressed  in 
clearer  and  stronger  terms  than  ever  before,  and  they 
drew  the  line  sharply  between  the  old  claims  of  the 
pajDacy  and  the  new  spirit  of  the  nations.  The  signifi- 
cant thing  about  the  contest  was  the  answer  which  the 
nations  made  to  these  assertions. 

Philip  seems  to  have  realized  the  new  force  which  he 
had  behind  him,  and  he  appealed  directly  to  the  nation. 
In  1302,  as  we  know,  he  summoned  the  first  Estates 
General  of  France,  and  submitted  to  them  the  papal  de- 
mands. Each  of  the  three  Estates  responded  separately, 
supporting  the  king  and  denying  the  right  of  the  pope  to 
any  supremacy  over  the  state.  The  clergy,  perhaps,  took 
this  position  somewhat  reluctantly  and  with  a  divided 
allegiance,  but  it  illustrates  in  a  striking  wa}^  the  strength 
of  public  opinion  in  favor  of  the  state  that  they  did  so  at 
all,  and  many  of  them  undoubtedly  supported  the  king 
from  real  conviction. 

The  result  in  England  was  the  same.  It  has  been  said 
by  some  that  on  the  point  of  taxation  Edward  yielded 
to  the  pope,  but  this  is  certainly  a  misunderstanding 
of  the  case.  It  is  true  that,  in  1297,  he  efi'ected  a 
temporary  reconciliation  with  the  church,  but  immedi- 
ately afterward  he  exercised  again  his  asserted  right 
of  taxation,  and  when  he  finally  abandoned  it  he 
yielded  not  to  the  church  but  to  the  general  oppo- 
sition throughout  the  nation  to  the  exercise  of  an  un- 
constitutional power,  and  agreed  that  no  orders  in  the 
state  should  be  taxed  except  by  their  own  consent. 
This  is  a  very  different  thing  from  recognizing  the 
claims  of  the  bull  "  Clericis  laicos,"  which  he  distinctly 
refused  to  do.  In  1299,  when  the  pope  asserted  that 
Scotland  was  a  fief  of  the  papacy  and  must  not  be  at- 
tacked by  the  English,  Edward  showed  no  disposition 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE  397 

to  yield  his  riglits,  and  he  had  the  support  of  the  king- 
dom in  his  resistance. 

One  incident  of  this  contest  must  not  be  omitted,  for  it 
is  the  beginning  of  an  idea  which  came  in  time  to  be  of 
the  utmost  importance.  Philip  made  a  formal  appeal 
from  the  pope,  on  the  grounds  of  Boniface's  heresy  and 
immorality  of  life,  to  a  general  council  and  a  more  lawful 
pope.  The  appeal,  at  the  moment,  came  to  nothing,  but 
the  idea  that  a  council  had  the  right  to  judge  of  the 
legitimacy  of  a  pope  was  destined  in  the  next  age  to  be 
the  starting-point  of  a  most  promising  and  hopeful  at- 
tempt to  reconstruct  the  constitution  of  the  church. 

The  reign  of  Boniface  came  to  an  end  with  his  death, 
in  1303,  as  the  result  of  an  assault  upon  his  person  by 
his  enemies.  He  had  failed  in  every  attempt  which  he 
had  made  to  control  political  affairs  wherever  the  new 
national  spirit  had  begun  to  be  alive.  It  was  the  close 
of  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  papacy  indeed.  The  old 
triumphs  of  the  church  over  the  state  could  no  longer  be 
repeated.  The  forces  of  modern  politics  which  have  re- 
duced the  papacy  to  political  insignificance  were  already 
beginning  to  stir. 

After  the  death  of  Boniface,  Philip  IV.  determined  to 
prevent  any  recurrence  of  such  a  conflict  in  the  future, 
by  subjecting  the  papac}'  directly  to  his  own  power,  and, 
after  a  brief  interval,  the  reign  of  Benedict  XL,  he  se- 
cured the  election  of  a  French  prelate,  Clement  V.,  and 
the  papacy  passed  for  a  period  of  seventy  years  under 
French  influence.  The  outward  sign  of  this  was'the  re- 
moval of  the  residence  of  the  popes,  and  so  the  practical 
capital  of  the  ecclesiastical  world,  to  Avignon,  a  city  of 
Provence  on  the  borders  of  France.  The  college  of  car- 
dinals was  filled  with  French  prelates,  and  during  a  part 
of  the  time  the  kings  of  France,  or  the  French  kings  of 
Naples,  almost  openly  controlled  the  papal  policy. 


398  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION- 

It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  tlie  result.  International 
politics  in  tlie  modern  sense  had  not  yet  arisen,  but  the 
first  faint  traces  were  then  to  be  seen  of  the  conflicting 
interests,  which  were  in  the  course  of  time,  when  the  in- 
ternal affairs  of  the  states  had  been  brought  into  more 
settled  shape,  to  lead  to  modern  inter-state  politics. 
The  nations  were  beginning  to  be  jealous  of  one  another 
and  to  fear  encroachment.  At  least  each  government 
had  objects  which  it  was  eagerly  striving  to  accomplish 
within  its  own  territories,  which  other  states  might  aid 
or  with  which  they  might  interfere.  So  long  as  the  pa- 
pacy continued  to  occupy  the  position  of  an  umpire, 
above  all  the  states  and  not  immediately  under  the  influ- 
ence of  any  one  of  them,  and  so  long  as  it  had  no  manifest 
political  interests  of  its  own  to  serve,  it  might  retain 
something  of  its  imperial  position.  The  spirit  of  the 
new  nations  might  resent  its  direct  interference  in  their 
local  affairs,  but  they  were  not  so  likely  to  resent,  indeed 
they  would  be  often  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  its  inter- 
national influence.  The  true  policy  for  the  papacy  to 
pursue,  after  the  rise  of  the  nations,  was  to  keep  itself  as 
free  as  it  could  from  all  special  politics,  and  to  improve 
and  strengthen  in  every  possible  way  its  international 
power. 

The  papacy  at  Avignon  was,  on  the  contrary,  virtually 
a  complete  abdication  of  this  position.  It  was  almost  as 
sudden  and  final  a  destruction  of  the  imperial  power  of 
the  popes  as  the  ruin  of  the  Hohenstaufen  family  had 
been  of  the  imperial  position  of  the  German  kings.  As 
soon  as  the  other  states  of  Europe  saw,  or  thought  they 
saw,  that  the  popes  were  under  the  control  of  France, 
that  their  undisputed  ecclesiastical  rights,  and  their  pre- 
tensions in  other  directions  were  being  used  to  serve  the 
ends  of  French  politics,  that  the  popes  were  really  the 
tools  of  the  kings  of  France,  then  the  national  spirit  was 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE  399 

roused  at  once  iu  opposition  to  papal  interference,  and 
the  popes  lost  even  the  respect  and  obedience  of  the 
other  states.  The  place  in  general  European  affairs,  from 
which  the  papacy  descended  when  it  went  to  Avignon  it 
was  never  able  to  recover.  This  was  in  reality  due  of 
course  to  the  growth  of  new  powers  and  new  conditions, 
a  new  general  atmosphere,  w^hich  made  it  impossible  to 
retui"n  to  the  old,  but  the  historical  facts  which  brought 
these  new  forces  to  bear  upon  the  papal  pretensions 
were  the  defeat  of  Boniface  in  his  conflict  with  Philip, 
and  the  consequent  "  Babylonian  captivity  "  at  Avignon. 
England,  for  example,  was  at  war  with  France  during 
nearly  the  whole  of  this  period,  and  the  feeling  that  the 
papacy  was  the  close  ally  of  her  enemy  had  something 
beyond  question  to  do  with  the  repeated  and  stringent 
measures  which  were  taken  in  the  reign  of  Edward  III., 
to  limit  the  right  of  the  pope  to  interfere  even  in  the  ec- 
clesiastical affau's  of  the  country,  in  the  statute  of  "  pro- 
visors  "  against  his  right  to  make  appointments  to  Eng- 
lish benefices,  and  of  "  praemunire  "  against  appeals  to 
the  papal  courts,  and  in  the  refusal  of  the  nation  to  pay 
any  longer  the  annual  tribute  Avhich  was  the'  mark  of  the 
feudal  dependence  of  England  upon  the  papacy,  estab- 
lished by  the  homage  of  King  John. 

.  Still  more  clearly  does  this  appear  in  the  case  of  Ger- 
many. When  the  Avignonese  popes,  John  XXII.  and 
Benedict  XII.,  asserted  their  right  to  decide  a  disputed 
election,  or  to  determine  the  right  to  the  throne  of  a 
regularly  elected  candidate,  manifestly  in  the  interest  of 
the  political  ambition  of  the  king  of  France,  then  even 
weakened  and  divided  Germany  was  aroused  by  the  spirit 
of  national  independence  and  rejected  with  decision  the 
pope's  pretensions.  The  electors  drew  up  a  solemn 
declaration,  in  1338,  which  in  the  same  year  received  the 
sanction  of  a  numerously  attended  diet  at  Frankfort,  re- 


400  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOK 

citing  that  the  king  derived  his  right  to  rule  from  God 
alone  and  not  from  the  pope,  and  that  his  regular  election 
carried  with  it  the  full  power  to  exercise  all  the  preroga- 
tives of  king  and  emperor,  whatever  rights  of  crowning 
and  consecration  might  justly  belong  to  the  pope.' 

But  other  results  of  the  captivity  at  Avignon  threatened 
the  papacy  with  a  far  more  serious  disaster  than  the  loss 
of  its  political  influence.  Grave  discontent  began  to 
arise,  and  earnest  criticism  began  to  be  heard  within  the 
church  itself  against  the  papal  policy.  The  progress  of 
events  increased  this  feeling  and  gave  it  stronger  and 
more  manifest  grounds  until,  for  a  short  time,  it  threat- 
ened to  overthrow  even  the  ecclesiastical  supremacy  of 
the  pope,  and  to  revolutionize  the  entire  constitution  of 
the  church. 

Increasing  luxury  and  nepotism  were  characteristic  of 
the  papacy  at  Avignon.  The  wasteful  extravagance  of  a 
court,  far  more  like  that  of  a  prodigal  sovereign  of  the 
world  than  of  a  Christian  bislioj),  demanded  an  increased 
income  to  meet  its  abnormally  heavy  expenses.  The 
ordinary  revenues  would  not  suffice,  and  the  ingenuity  of 
successive  popes  needed  to  be  exercised  to  devise  new 
forms  of  taxation,  or  rather  new  expedients  by  which 
money  could  be  exacted  from  the  clergy  of  Europe. 
This  necessity  led  to  a  great  enlargement  of  the  papal 
right  of  appointment  to  local  benefices  throughout  the 
Catholic  world,  a  method  of  extortion  which  was  doubly 
offensive,  not  merely  because  of  the  large  sums  thus  ex- 
torted in  annates  and  other  fees,  but  also  because  of  its 
interference  with  the  independence  and  self-government 
of  the  local  churches.  The  practice  excited  no  little  out- 
cry and  opposition.  It  had  a  decisive  influence  in  lead- 
ing to  the  adoption  of  the  statutes  against  such  practices 

'  Th.M-e  is  a  translation  in  Ilendersoii.  p.  437,  of  the  document  adopted 
at  Fra'.ikfort. 


THE  PAPACY  IK  THE  KEW  AGE       401 

in  England  under  Edward  III.,  and  elsewliere  ecclesias- 
tical bodies  made  strong  protest  and  drew  up  formal 
declarations  against  the  rights  assumed  by  the  popes. 

This  spirit  of  discontent  and  criticism  was  strengthened 
from  another  side.  Earnest  minds  could  not  fail  to  con- 
demn, as  contrary  to  a  genuine  Christianity,  the  luxurj- 
and  immorality  which  prevailed  at  Avignon  and  in- 
fluenced the  whole  chm'ch  from  that  centre.  Wycliffe's 
party  in  England  drew  no  little  aid  from  the  prevalence 
of  this  feeling.  But  an  earlier  rebellion  in  the  church 
on  this  point  had  been  attended  with  even  more  extreme 
views.  A  body  within  the  Franciscan  order,  earnestly 
devoted  to  a  simple  and  spiritual  life,  had  adopted  an 
idea  which  implied  that,  following  the  example  of  Christ 
and  the  apostles,  "evangelical  poverty"  was  a  Christian 
duty  demanded  of  all  the  clergy,  and  with  this  other 
equally  revolutionary  notions.  Condemned  by  the  popes 
as  heretics,  the  more  irreconcilable  of  them,  with  some 
others  of  like  mind,  took  refuge  with  Lewis  of  Bavaria, 
who  gathered  about  him  in  this  way  a  small  literary 
army,  far  more  logical  and  thorough  in  their  opposition 
to  the  papal  demands  than  he  was  himself.  In  his  ser- 
vice, the  ablest  of  these  writers,  William  of  Ockliam  and 
Marsiglio  of  Padua,  proclaimed  doctrines  which  were 
revolutionary  not  merely  of  the  world's  ecclesiastical 
government  of  that  time,  but  also  of  its  political  gov- 
ernments, and  which  were  in  man}^  remarkable  ways 
anticipations  of  ideas  which  have  come  to  prevail  in 
modern  times.  On  the  special  point  at  issue  between 
Lewis  and  the  pope,  they  denied  in  the  clearest  terms 
the  right  of  the  pope  to  centre  in  himself  the  powers  of 
the  church,  and  maintained  the  superiority  of  a  general 
council. 

During  the  residence  of  the  popes  at  Avignon,  there 
was,  therefore,  a  growing  dissatisfaction  and  spirit  of 
'26 


402  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

criticism  both  within  and  without  the  ranks  of  the  clerg}-, 
a  disposition  to  question  the  right  of  the  papacy  as  an 
absokite  monarchy  over  the  church,  as  well  as  to  deny  its 
right  to  assume  the  direction  of  political  affairs,  and  there 
were  also,  a  still  more  significant  fact,  clear  demands  for 
a  general  council  to  judge  and  control  the  pope.  But  as 
yet  these  signs  of  coming  civil  war  had  been  seen  only 
here  and  there  as  connected  with  special  cases  of  dispute 
between  the  pope  and  some  particular  opponent.  Men's 
minds  had  been  somewhat  familiarized  with  these  new 
theories  of  church  government,  as  possibilities,  but  there 
was  as  yet  no  general  acceptance  of  them,  no  European 
demand  for  a  universal  council  to  exercise  supreme  func- 
tions in  the  church,  and  to  take  the  papacy  under  its  con- 
trol. It  was  the  Great  Schism,  and  the  events  connect- 
ed with  it,  the  period  in  church  history  which  followed 
the  Babylonian  captivity  at  Avignon,  which  transformed 
these  isolated  demands  for  a  general  council,  used  as  a 
weapon  in  special  contests  with  the  papacy,  as  a  threat 
to  be  held  over  the  pope,  into  a  strong  demand  of  all 
Europe  which  could  not  be  resisted. 

It  was  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Italy,  rather  than 
any  sense  of  duty  to  the  church  universal,  which  moved 
Gregory  XI.  to  return  fi'om  Avignon  to  Rome.  The  ab- 
sence of  the  popes  had  thrown  the  papal  states  into 
anarchy  and  confusion.  Revolution  and  counter-revolu- 
tion had  followed  one  another  in  rapid  succession,  now 
democratic  in  spirit  and  again  papal — it  was  in  this  pe- 
riod that  the  experiments  of  Rienzo  were  made — and, 
in  1377,  Gregory  XI.  feared  that  his  power  in  Italy 
would  be  entirely  lost  if  he  did  not  attempt  its  recovery 
in  person.  But  the  French  cardinals  were  not  recon- 
ciled to  the  change.  They  were  not  willing  to  leave  the 
luxury  and  quiet  of  A^dgnon  and  to  subject  themselves 
to   the  tumultuous   rudeness  of   Rome.     The   loud   de- 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE  403 

mand  of  the  Romans  tliat  an  Italian  pope  slioiild  be 
elected,  on  the  death  of  Gregory  XI.  in  1378,  and  pop- 
ular tumults  connected  with  the  election  of  Urban  VI., 
gave  them  an  opportunity  to  assert  that  the  election  had 
been  forced  upon  them  by  bodily  fear  and  was  not  there- 
fore a  free  and  legal  election.  On  this  ground  they 
withdrew — in  the  end  all  the  cardinals  who  had  elected 
Urban  abandoned  him  —  and  elected  one  of  their  own 
number  pope,  who  took  the  name  of  Clement  YII.,  and 
returned  to  Avignon.  Urban  on  his  side  created  a  num- 
ber of  Italian  cardinals,  and  the  papacy  had  now  two 
heads  as  well  as  two  capitals.  The  nations  of  Europe 
chose  sides  solely  as  their  political  interests  led  them. 
France,  of  course,  supported  Clement;  England,  of 
course,  supported  Urban.  Naples  could  not  help  oppos- 
ing the  Roman  pope,  nor  Germany  the  pope  who  was 
under  the  iniluence  of  France.  There  were  not  merely 
two  popes  and  two  capitals,  but  the  whole  church  was 
rent  in  twain,  and  the  question  whether  there  was  in  the 
church,  as  distinguished  from  the  pope,  a  power  to  re- 
organize its  government  and  to  compel  even  the  papacy 
to  submit  to  reformation,  was  forced  upon  the  attention 
of  every  man  who  had  any  interest  in  public  affairs. 

In  the  prevailing  temper  of  the  time,  the  discussion  of 
this  question  showed  a  rapid  tendency  to  break  with  the 
traditions  and  historical  theories  of  the  church.  It  was  a 
time  when  the  ties  of  the  church  universal  seem  to  have 
been  loosed  in  every  direction  and  new  and  strange  no- 
tions in  theology  and  concerning  practical  religion  made 
their  appearance  on  every  hand.  Wild  dreams  and  ideas 
that  would  one  day  bear  good  fruit  were  mingled  together 
— "Wycliffe  and  the  Beguiues,  the  Brethren  of  the  Com- 
mon Life  and  the  Flagellants,  and  many  forgotten  names 
of  the  sort,  good  and  bad.  It  was  a  favorable  atmosphere 
for  the  rapid  growth  of  revolutionary  schemes  for  the 


404  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

settlement  of  the  difficulty  wliicli  the  Schism  forced 
upon  the  church.  The  whole  tendency  for  centuries  in 
the  ecclesiastical  world  had  been  to  centre  the  life  and 
power  of  the  church  more  and  more  completely  in  the 
pope.  The  doctrine  of  papal  infallibility  and  of  the 
pope's  absolute  headship  of  the  church  may  not  have 
been  so  explicitly  stated  as  a  necessary  article  of  faith  as 
now,  but  it  was  practically  no  less  clearly  held  or  firmly 
believed  by  the  general  body  of  churchmen.  In  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time,  this  liistoricah tendency  was  for- 
gotten by  very  many.  It  was  argued  that  it  mattered 
little  how  many  popes  there  were.  There  might  be  ten 
or  twelve.  Each  land  might  have  its  own  independent 
pope.  It  might  be  the  will  of  God  that  the  papacy  shoidd 
remain  permanently  divided." 

But  the  ideas  which  won  the  general  acceptance  of 
Europe  were  not  so  extreme  as  these,  though  really  as 
revolutionary.  A  group  of  earnest  and  able  men,  of 
whom  John  Gerson,  of  the  University  of  Paris,  is  the 
best  known,  began  to  advance  ideas  which,  though  they 
broke  with  the  special  form  which  the  unity  of  the 
church  had  been  assuming  in  the  headship  of  the  pope, 
did  not  break  with  the  real  spirit  of  that  unity,  and 
which  consequently  furnished  a  more  solid  doctrinal 
foundation  for  their  plan  of  reformation  than  was  possi- 
ble for  the  wilder  ideas  of  others,  and  commanded  gen- 
eral approval  for  it.  According  to  these  theories,  the 
clmrch  universal  is  superior  to  the  pope.  It  may  elect 
him  if  the  cardinals  fail  to  do  so  ;  it  may  depose  one 
whom  the  cardinals  have  elected.  The  pope  is  an  officer 
of  the  church,  and,  if  he  abuses  his  office,  he  may  be 
treated  as  an  enemy,  as  a  temporal  prince  would  be  in 

'  The  first  volume  of  Pastor's  Geschiclite  der  Pdpste.  which  contains  a 
very  valuable  account  of  this  crisis  in  the  history  of  the  papacy,  from 
the  Catholic  point  of  view,  has  been  translated  into  English. 


THE   PAPACY    IN   TIIK   NEW    AGE  405 

a  similar  case.  The  liigliest  expression  of  tlie  unity 
and  power  of  this  church  universal  is  a  general  council. 
This  is  superior  to  the  pope,  may  meet  legitimately 
without  his  summons,  and  he  must  obey  its  decisions. 

The  first  attempt  to  carry  into  practice  the  appeal 
from  the  pope  to  a  general  council,  and  so  to  end  the 
Schism,  was  in  the  Council  of  Pisa,  in  1409.  Long  ne- 
gotiations for  the  purpose  of  restoring  peace  to  the 
church  in  some  other  way  had  failed.  The  attempt  to 
get  both  popes  to  abdicate,  and  so  make  way  for  the 
election  of  a  new  pope  for  the  whole  church,  had  shortly 
before  seemed  about  to  succeed.  Each  of  the  two  popes 
— Benedict  XIII.,  of  Avignon,  and  Gregory  XII.,  of 
Home — had  been  elected  under  solemn  promise  to  re- 
sign if  his  opponent  could  be  brought  to  do  the  same. 
But  neither  was  willing  to  take  the  first  step,  and  it  soon 
became  evident  that  the  Schism  could  not  be  healed  in 
this  way.  France  then  withdrcAv  its  support  from  Bene- 
dict who  took  refuge  in  Spain.  The  majority  of  the  car- 
dinals of  both  popes  abandoned  their  masters  and  united 
in  a  call  for  a  general  council  to  assemble  in  Pisa  in 
1409. 

But  the  Council  of  Pisa  did  not  command  universal 
acceptance.  Political  and  other  considerations  had  re- 
tained a  few  states  in  the  obedience  of  each  of  the  popes. 
The  council  was  itself  injudicious  and  hasty,  and  did  not 
sufficiently  fortify  its  position  against  obvious  objections. 
It  deposed  the  two  contending  popes  and  sanctioned  the 
election  of  a  new  one  by  the  cardinals  present,  Alexan- 
der V. — wlio  died  in  1410,  and  was  succeeded  by  John 
XXIII. — but  it  separated  without  providing  for  the  real 
reformation  of  the  church. 

The  situation  was  made  in  reality  worse  than  it  had 
been  before.  There  were  now  three  popes,  each  claiming 
to  be  the  sole  rightful  pope,  and  each  recognized  as  such 


406  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

by  some  part  of  the  cliurcli.  But  the  council  had  served 
the  great  purpose  of  bringing  out,  more  clearly  than  ever 
l)oforc,  the  arguments  on  Avhicli  its  right  to  act  rested, 
and  of  convincing  Europe  at  large  that,  if  it  could  be 
properly  managed,  a  really  universal  council,  as  the  voice 
of  the  united  church,  Avas  the  proper  method  of  solving 
the  difficulty. 

In  the  next  stage  of  events  the  emperor-elect,  Sigis- 
mund,  as  representing,  upon  the  political  side,  the  unity 
of  Christendom,  took  a  leadiug  part.  The  political  sit- 
uation in  Italy  forced  John  XXIII.  to  depend  upon  the 
emperor's  aid,  and  Sigismund  was  therefore  able  to  make 
the  representatives  of  the  pope  agree  to  a  council  which 
was  to  meet  in  the  imperial  city  of  Constance,  and  so 
outside  of  Italy,  on  November  1,  1414.  This  agreement 
Sigismund  made  haste  to  announce  publicly  to  all  Eu- 
rope and  to  invite  proper  persons  from  all  states  to  be 
present.  After  a  fruitless  attempt  to  change  the  place  of 
meeting,  John  was  compelled  to  acquiesce,  and  a  few 
weeks  later  issued  a  formal  summons  for  the  council. 

Sanctioned  in  this  way  by  the  Eoman  emperor  and  by 
the  pope,  whom  the  greater  part  of  the  church  recog- 
nized, and  supported  by  the  deep  and  universal  desire 
of  Europe  for  union  and  reformation,  the  council  which 
assembled  at  Constance  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
a  imiversal  one,  and  appeared  to  have  a  most  encourag- 
ing prospect  of  success.  Its  membership  reached  five 
thousand.  All  Europe  was  represented  from  the  begin- 
ning, with  insignificant  exceptions.  Its  spirit,  too,  w^as 
in  contrast  with  that  of  the  Council  of  Pisa.  AVhile  reso- 
lutely determined  to  do  away  with  the  Schism,  it  was 
directed  with  caution  and  good  judgment. 

John  XXIII.  failed  to  control  the  council  as  he  had 
hoped  to  do,  and  was  finally  forced  to  recognize  its  right 
to  depose  him.     This  was  done  on  May  29,  1415.     On 


THE   PAPACY    IN   TIIP]   NEW   AGE  407 

July  4tli  the  council  listened  to  the  abdication,  voluntary 
in  form,  of  Gregory  XII.  Benedict  XIII.  refused  to  ab- 
dicate, but  finally  his  supporters  all  withdrew  from  his 
obedience  and  joined  the  council,  and  on  July  26,  1417, 
he  was  formally  deposed. 

The  church  was  now  reunited  in  a  Avay  that  was  satis- 
factory to  all  Christendom,  but  it  M^as  without  a  head, 
and  measures  of  moral  reform  were  still  to  be  adopted. 
The  council  was  thus  brought  to  the  necessity  of  decid- 
ing a  question  upon  which  there  was  the  widest  differ- 
ence of  opinion — whether  it  should  proceed  first  to  the 
election  of  a  pope  or  to  a  thorough  reformation  of  the 
abuses  in  the  government  of  the  church,  of  which  there 
was  so  general  complaint.  The  earnest  reform  party, 
supported  by  the  emperor,  desired  to  make  sure  of  the 
reformation  before  the  choice  of  a  pope.  The  cardinals, 
less  interested  in  reformation  and  fearing  a  diminution 
of  their  influence,  demanded  the  immediate  election  of  a 
pope.  They  were  supported  by  the  Italian  representa- 
tives and  by  many  who  really  desired  reform,  but  in 
whom  the  conservative  feeling  of  the  necessity  of  a  head 
to  the  real  constitution  of  the  church  was  a  stronger 
motive.  The  reform  efforts  of  the  council  were  greatly 
weakened  by  dissension.  Various  parties  urged  spcscial 
measures  of  their  own  Avhicli  were  not  acceptable  to 
others.  Local  and  national  interests  were  opposed  to 
one  another.  Political  influences  were  also  at  work  and 
agreement  on  details  seemed  impossible.  Finally  a 
compromise  was  adopted.  Certain  reform  measures  of 
a  general  character  on  which  all  (!Ould  unite  were  to  be 
first  decreed  by  the  council  and  then  a  pope  was  to 
be  elected.  In  accordance  with  this  agreement  five 
such  reform  decrees  were  adopted  in  October,  1417, 
and  on  November  11th  the  cardinals,  to  whom  the 
council   had   added  thirty  representatives,  chosen  from 


408  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

its  membership  for  this  purpose,  elected  a  new  pope, 
Martin  V. 

The  new  pope  was  able  to  prevent  an}^  further  action 
of  importance  by  the  council,  and  it  dissolved  on  April 
22,  1418,  having  reunited  the  church  but  not  having 
reformed  it.  The  most  important  of  the  general  reform 
measures  which  it  had  adopted  was  one  providing  for 
the  regular  recurrence  of  such  general  councils,  the  first 
in  five  years,  the  second  in  seven,  and  thereafter  at  inter- 
vals of  ten  years.  Could  this  decree  have  been  enforced, 
together  Avith  the  declarations  of  the  council  adopted  in 
its  early  sessions  of  the  superiority  of  a  general  council 
over  the  pope,  which  gave  expression  to  ideas  very  gen- 
erally prevalent  at  the  time,  the  whole  constitution  of  the 
church  would  have  been  changed  and  all  its  subsequent 
history  would  have  been  different.  The  later  absolutism 
of  the  pope  would  have  been  impossible,  the  papacy 
would  have  been  transformed  into  a  limited  monarchy, 
and  the  supreme  power  would  have  been  a  representative 
assembly  meeting  at  regular  intervals,  and  having  final 
legislative  and  judicial  authority.  But  so  favorable  a 
moment  as  that  presented  by  the  Council  of  Constance 
for  accomplishing  this  result  never  recurred,  and  the 
failure  of  that  council  to  secure  the  subjection  of  the 
pope  was  fatal  to  the  plan. 

The  first  two  councils,  provided  for  by  the  decree  of 
the  Council  of  Constance,  met  at  the  appointed  time  but 
were  able  to  accomplish  nothing.  The  first  was  held  at 
Pavia,  in  1423,  but  was  very  thinly  attended,  and,  though 
it  manifested  the  same  desire  to  limit  the  power  of  the 
pope,  Martin  Y.  dissolved  it  before  it  had  adopted  any 
important  measures.  It  selected  Basel  as  the  place  for 
the  meeting  of  the  next  council,  which  would  assemble 
in  1431.  At  that  time  the  threatening  successes  of  the 
Hussites  and  the  apparent  impossibility  of  overcoming 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW    AGE  409 

them  by  force  seemed  to  make  a  general  council  espe- 
cially necessary,  but  the  attendance  at  its  opening  Avas 
small  and  was  at  no  time  large.  Its  spirit,  however,  Avas 
most  determined  and  its  measures  most  thoroughgoing. 
It  gave  itself  a  democratic  organization  by  admitting  the 
lower  clergy  to  an  equal  vote  with  the  higher ;  it  reaf- 
firmed the  decrees  of  the  Council  (^f  Constance  in  regard 
to  the  superiority  of  a  council  over  the  pope ;  denied  his 
right  to  dissolve  the  council  without  its  own  consent ; 
declared  that  the  payment  of  annates  and  of  all  fees  to 
the  pope  on  appointment  to  benefices  should  cease ;  pro- 
vided for  local  synods  to  carry  throughout  the  church 
the  idea  of  government  by  councils ;  attempted  to  change 
the  method  of  electing  the  popes  by  the  cardinals ;  and 
assumed  the  right  to  exercise  in  several  points  special 
papal  prerogatives.  But  it  did  not  gain  general  recog- 
nition for  these  assumptions.  The  pope,  Eugeuius  IV. , 
after  a  premature  attempt  to  dissolve  it,  had  been  com- 
pelled b}^  political  considerations  for  some  time  to  recog- 
nize it  as  a  council,  but  finally  he  was  able  to  declare  it 
dissolved  and  to  open  another  council  under  his  own  con- 
trol in  Ital3^  The  Council  of  Basel  in  turn  deposed  the 
pope  and  elected  one  of  its  own  in  his  place.  But  the 
more  influential  of  the  prelates  gradually  went  over  to 
the  side  of  Pope  Eugenius.  The  council  degenerated 
rapidly,  and  finally  disappeared,  a  complete  failure. 

One  other  phase  of  this  later  contest  is  Of  considerable 
interest.  At  the  moment  when  the  discord  between  the 
Council  of  Basel  and  the  pope  threatened  a  now  schism 
in  the  church,  France  and  Germany  took  advantage  of 
the  opportunity  to  declare  in  advance  their  neutrality 
in  the  coming  struggle,  and  to  signify  their  acceptance  of 
such  decrees  of  the  council  as  would  secure  a  good  de- 
gree of  independence  to  their  national  churches.  The 
French  national  synod,  held  at  Bourges,  in  1438,  recog- 


410  MEDIEVAL   C1VILIZA.TI0N 

nized  the  superior  authority  of  councils,  declared  that 
they  ought  to  be  held  every  ten  years,  enacted  that  reser- 
vations, annates,  and  appeals  to  Eorae  in  ordinary  cases 
should  cease,  and  adopted  measures  of  moral  reform. 
The  following  year  very  similar  provisions  were  adopted 
for  Germany  by  the  Diet  at  Mainz.  Such  a  result  was  in 
truth  a  natural  consequence  of  the  position  taken  by  the 
councils  and  of  the  general  current  of  opinion  which  had 
supported  them,  and  if  that  position  had  been  success- 
fully established  and  the  constitution  of  the  church  per- 
manently modified,  it  would  inevitably  have  led  to  the 
formation  of  locally  independent  and  self-governing 
national  churches.  As  it  was,  this  attempt  also  came  to 
nothing.' 

This  indicates  the  real  significance  of  the  crisis 
through  which  the  church  had  passed.  It  had  been  a 
most  serious  danger  to  the  paj^acy,  looked  at  from  the 
point  of  view  of  its  historical  development.  Drawing 
its  strength  and  life  undoubtedly  from  the  same  sources 
from  which  the  great  political  movement  whose  history 
we  have  followed  had  drawn,  being  in  fact  the  same 
forces  as  those  which  had  constructed  the  new  nations 
transferred  now  to  the  sphere  of  ecclesiastical  govern- 

'  The  French  church  retained  some  independence,  more  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  king,  however,  than  of  the  church.  In  1682,  in  conse- 
quence of  a  quarrel  between  Louis  XIV.  and  the  pope  over  the  right 
of  the  king  to  make  appointments  in  the  church,  an  assembly  of  the 
French  clergy  adopted  the  Four  Articles  of  the  Gallican  church. 
Tliese  asserted,  1,  that  the  power  of  the  pope  is  wholly  spiritual  and 
that  kings  cannot  be  deposed  by  him  ;  2,  that  popes  are  subject  to  the 
decisions  of  general  councils  ;  3,  that  popes  must  govern  according  to 
the  accepted  laws  of  the  church,  and,  specially,  according  to  the  rights 
of  the  Gallican  cliurch  ;  and  4,  that  decisions  of  the  popes  in  matters 
of  faith  have  only  a  temporary  force,  and,  to  become  permanently 
binding,  must  be  accepted  by  a  general  council.  These  seem  like  a 
reaffirmation  of  the  principles  of  the  councils  but  they  established  no 
real  independence. 


THE   PAPACY    IN   THE   NEW   AGE  411 

ment,  and  striving  to  work  the  same  revolution  there 
which  they  had  worked  in  temporal  governments,  uncon- 
scious of  course  of  this  relationship,  unconscious  also 
very  largely  of  the  end  which  Avould  have  been  reached, 
but  Avith  a  growing  clearness  of  apprehension,  this  move- 
ment threatened  to  transform  as  completely  the  Eoman 
Catholic  monarchy  as  it  had  transformed  that  other  great 
medieval  creation,  the  feudal  system.  The  peculiar  sit- 
uation of  things  within  the  church  —  the  Babylonian 
captivity  and  the  Great  Schism — gave  an  opportunity 
for  the  translation  of  the  political  ideas  of  the  age  into 
ecclesiastical  ideas.  The  growing  importance  of  the 
representative  system — of  Diets  and  Estates  General — 
in  national  governments  made  the  appeal  to  a  general 
council  in  the  government  of  the  church  seem  a  perfectly 
natural  resource  in  time  of  difficulty,  especially  to  law- 
yers, and  university  teachers,  and  even  to  the  great  lay 
public.  It  might  not  seem  so  simple  and  manifest  an 
expedient  to  those  immediately  concerned  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  church  and  directly  interested  in  its  tra- 
ditions or  devoted  to  them.  But  the  strength  of  the 
reform  movement  was  not  drawn  from  the  world  of  the 
cardinals  and  the  great  prelates,  but  from  the  universities 
and  the  doctors,  and  the  non-ecclesiastical  world. 

This  movement  was,  in  truth,  strong  enough  to  have 
succeeded,  and  it  almost  succeeded.  If  the  Council  of 
Constance  had  continued  to  the  end  cautious  and  well- 
managed,  if  there  could  have  come  to  the  front  some 
great  leader,  strong  enough  to  have  persuaded  its  mem- 
bers to  lay  aside  their  local  differences  for  the  general 
cause,  and  to  hold  back  outside  political  interests  from 
interference,  and  who  could  have  defined  clearly  the 
specific  measures  necessary  to  realize  the  policy  which 
unquestionably  the  majority  desired,  he  could  have  suc- 
ceeded in  all  probability  in  remodelling  the  government 


412  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

of  the  cliurcli.  It  seems  an  almost  unparalleled  fact  that 
the  crisis  did  not  produce  such  a  leader. 

It  may  be  objected  that  such  a  revolution  would  have 
been  too  sudden  to  effect  a  permanent  change,  that  only 
those  revolutions  are  really  successful  which  are  the  cul- 
mination, however  sudden  in  appearance,  of  a  long  pre- 
pared change.  The  principle  is  certainly  correct,  but  the 
application  here  is  doubtful,  for  the  line  of  preparation  is 
manifestly  to  be  traced  not  in  the  ecclesiastical  but  in  the 
political  world. 

Knowing,  as  we  do  now,  the  events  which  followed  on 
so  rapidly  in  the  history  of  the  church — the  revolution  so 
much  more  violent  and  far-reaching  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury— we  cannot  help  asking  the  question  :  What  would 
have  been  the  result  had  the  Council  of  Constance  suc- 
ceeded where  it  failed  ?  and  allowing  the  imagination  to 
answer.  It  seems  certain  that  one  result  would  have 
been  the  formation  of  a  government  for  the  church  like 
that  which  was  taking  shape  at  the  same  time  in  England, 
a  limited  monarchy  with  a  legislature  gradually  gaining 
more  and  more  the  real  control  of  affairs.  It  seems  al- 
most equally  certain  that  with  this  the  churches  of  each 
nationality  would  have  gained  a  large  degree  of  local  in- 
dependence and  the  general  government  of  the  church 
have  assumed  by  degrees  the  character  of  a  great  federal 
and  constitutional  state.  If  this  had  been  the  case,  it  is 
hard  to  see  why  all  the  results  which  were  accomplished 
by  the  reformation  of  Luther  might  not  have  been  at- 
tained as  completely  without  that  violent  disruption  of 
the  church,  which  was  necessary  and  unavoidable  as  the 
church  was  then  constituted.  Whether  that  would  have 
been  on  the  whole  a  better  result  may  be  left  without 
discussion. 

If  this  is  in  a  way  fanciful  history,  the  results  which 
did  follow  were  real  enough.     The  theory  of  the  papal 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW    AGE  413 

supremacy  was  too  strongly  established  in  the  cliurcli  to 
be  overthrown  by  an  opposing  theory  only  half -believed 
in  by  its  supporters.  The  logic  of  the  papal  position  is 
immensely  strong  if  its  starting-point  be  accepted,  and 
to  the  great  body  of  the  leading  churchmen  of  the  times, 
whose  training  was  wholly  in  speculative  and  theoretical 
lines,  it  seemed  in  the  end  invincible.  It  would  have 
demanded  a  more  united  and  abler  commanded  attack  to 
have  destroyed  it.  The  only  result  of  the  attempt,  so 
far  as  the  church  constitution  is  concerned,  was  to  make 
the  position  of  the  paj^al  absolutism  stronger  than  it  had 
been  before,  and  to  bring  to  an  end  forever  any  serious 
opposition  to  it.  The  next  great  council,  that  of  Trent, 
which  was  so  completely  under  the  control  of  the  pope 
as  to  give  ground  for  the  sneer  that  the  Holy  Spirit  by 
which  it  was  inspired  came  every  day  from  Eome  in  a 
mail-bag,  was  the  legitimate  successor  of  the  Council  of 
Constance,  and  the  dogma  of  papal  infallibility,  pro- 
claimed by  the  Council  of  the  Vatican,  in  1870,  was  only 
an  official  formulation  of  the  principle  established  when 
the  movement  for  reformation  by  councils  in  the  fifteenth 
century  failed. 

The  fact  that  the  Council  of  Constance  did  actually 
appear  to  depose  popes  and  to  pro\ide  during  a  brief 
interval  for  the  government  of  the  church  gives  the 
Catholic  theologian  of  to-day  who  maintains  the  tradi- 
tional position  but  little  difficulty.  In  his  eyes,  Gregory 
XII.  was  the  onh'  one  of  the  three  popes  who  had  a 
rightful  title.  The  assembly  at  Constance  was  no  real 
general  council,  only  a  synod,  until  Gregory  issued  his 
bull  of  convocation,  and  its  acts  passed  before  that  date, 
including  its  declaration  of  the  superior  power  of  a 
council,  are  all  wanting  in  legislative  validity.  By  con- 
voking the  councdl  and  then  abdicating  his  office  Gregory 
relieved  the  church  from  great  embarrassment,  and  first 


414  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

gave  to  the  council  a  legitimate  position,  so  that  it  could 
act  with  some  prospect  of  success  for  the  reunion  of  the 
church.  By  accepting  the  acts  of  Gregory,  the  council 
formally  recognized  him  as  the  only  legitimate  pope, 
and,  by  inference,  with  him  his  predecessors  during  the 
Schism.*  Thus  the  theory  is  perfectly  preserved.  What- 
ever right  the  council  had  in  the  premises  it  got  not  by 
virtue  of  its  existence  as  a  general  council,  but  indi- 
rectly, from  the  concessions  of  the  pope. 

For  the  moral  reformation  of  the  church  the  age  of 
the  councils  accomplished  nothing  of  real  value.  Most 
of  the  old  abuses  of  which  the  people  complained  re- 
mained unchecked.  Avarice  and  immorality  continued, 
unabashed,  in  the  papal  court,  and  before  the  close  of  the 
century  the  papacy  was  to  reach  a  depth  of  moral  de- 
gradation equalled  only  in  the  tenth  century.  A  consid- 
erable proportion  of  the  clergy  throughout  Europe  imi- 
tated the  practices  of  Italy,  and,  heedless  of  the  warnings 
they  were  constantly  receiving,  continued  to  strengthen 
the  current  of  rebellion. 

Politically  the  position  of  the  papacy  was  gTeatly 
changed,  but  it  remained  no  less  controlled,  perhaps  even 
more  controlled,  by  political  considerations.  The  day 
when  it  could  hope  to  carry  out  the  plans  of  Gregory 
VII.,  and  Innocent  III.,  and  Boniface  VIII.,  and  to  es- 
tablish a  monarchy,  imperial  in  the  political  as  it  was  in 
the  ecclesiastical  world,  would  never  return  again.  But 
the  pope  was  a  king  as  well  as  a  bishop.  He  was  the 
temporal  sovereign  of  a  little  state  in  Italy.  With  the 
rise  of  international  politics  and  the  beginning  of  the 
modern  conflict  of  state  with  state  for  European  suprem- 
acy which  we  have  already  noticed,  Italy  was  the  first 
battle-groimd  of  all  nations.  It  was  the  practically  un- 
occupied piece  of  ground  lying  first  at  hand  in  which 
'Pastor,  GescJiicMe  der  Pdpste,  Vol.  L,  pp.  154-155. 


THE   PAPACY   IN   THE   NEW   AGE  415 

each  might  hope  to  gain  some  great  advantage  over  the 
others.  In  this  struggle  of  armies  and  diplomacy  the 
popes  had  an  immediate  and  vital  interest.  They  must 
enter  into  it  on  the  same  footing  and  with  the  same 
weapons  as  Austria  or  Spain,  and  this  necessity  of  con- 
stantly striving  to  preserve  the  independence  of  their 
little  kingdom  in  the  turmoil  of  European  politics,  or  to 
recover  it  when  lost,  has  been  a  controlling  element  in 
the  papal  policy  down  to  the  reign  of  Leo  XIIT.,  a  per- 
petually harassing  and  disabling  necessity,  judged  from 
the  point  of  view  of  its  religious  position. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE   EEFOEMATION' 

By  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  middle 
ages  had  come  to  an  end  in  ahnost  every  line  of  civili- 
zation. Politically,  economically,  and  intellectually  the 
new  forces  and  the  new  methods  had  possession  of  the 
field.  The  old  were  not  yet  beaten  at  ever}"  point.  On 
many  matters  of  detail  much  fighting  had  yet  to  be 
done.  In  some  places,  perhaps,  the  old  succeeded  in 
maintaining  itself,  or  even  in  recovering  ground.  But 
on  the  main  issues,  everywhere,  the  victory  had  been  won 
— with  one  most  important  exception.  Tlie  church 
was  unchanged.  It  had  remained  unaffected  by  the  new 
forces  which  had  transformed  everything  else.  It  was 
still  thoroughly  medieval.  In  government,  in  doctrine, 
and  in  life  it  still  placed  the  greatest  emphasis  upon  those 
points  which  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  middle  ages 
had  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  primitive  Christi- 
anity, and  it  was  determined  to  remain  unchanged. 

This  was  not  because  no  attempt  had  been  made  to 
transform  it.  It  was  entirely  impossil:)le  that  it  should 
have  passed  through  such  an  era  of  change  as  that  which 

'  Especially  valuable  single-volume  histories  of  the  Reformation  are, 
Fisher"s,  Tlie  Pieformatioii ;  Seehohm's,  The  Protestant  Revolution; 
and  Beard's,  The  Reformation  va.  the  Tlibhcrt  Lectures.  Koestlin's  Mar- 
tinfAtther  is  the  standard  biography.  His  popular  condensation  .of  the 
larger  work  has  been  twice  translated  into  English.  The  edition  with 
the  original  illustrations  is  much  the  better  and  should  be  the  one  used. 


THE    REFORMATION  417 

followed  the  crusades  without  coming  into  contact  and 
conflict  with  the  new  forces.  We  have  seen  the  attempt 
which  was  made,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, at  the  Council  of  Constance,  to  bring  over  into  the 
sphere  of  ecclesiastical  government  the  institutions  and 
ideas  which  had  been  produced  in  the  course  of  the  poli- 
tical transformation,  which  was  then  under  way,  and  to 
make  over  the  government  of  the  church  in  harmony 
with  the  new  age.  That  attempt  failed  completely,  and 
its  only  effect  had  been  to  strengthen  the  government  of 
the  church  in  its  medievalism. 

In  the  line  of  theological  belief  and  of  life  we  have 
not  followed  the  attempts  which  had  been  made  before 
the  Reformation  to  bring  about  a  change,  but  they  had 
not  been  wanting,  and  they  had  not  lacked  clearness  of 
purpose  or  earnestness. 

In  the  thirteenth  century,  beginning  perhaps  a  trifle 
earlier,  in  the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  there  had  been  a  re- 
volt from  the  church  upon  these  points  which  had  never 
been  entirely  subdued.  It  was  the  region  of  an  early 
and  a  brilliant  civilization,  the  land  of  the  troubadours. 
An  active  intellectual  life  and  an  inquiring  spirit  appar- 
ently existed  there  in  all  classes,'  and  a  line  of  connection 
with  earlier  forms  of  heresy  probably  gave  direction  to  a 
revolt  which  would  have  occurred  without  it.  Two  sects 
must  be  distinguished  from  one  another  in  the  same  gen- 
eral region — the  Albigenses,  more  directly  interested  in 
questions  of  theology,  and  considered  heretics  by  Prot- 
estants as  well  as  Catholics,  and  the  Waldenses,  or  Yau- 
dois,  chiefly  concerned  with  religious  questions  and  the 
conduct  of  life,  and  orthodox  in  theology  according  to 
Protestant  standards.  In  the  case  of  the  Albigenses  the 
church  was  able  to  make  use  of  political  assistance,  and 
a  oivil  war  of  some  years'  duration  resulted  in  the  exter- 
'  Comba,  Widdenses,  p.  15. 


418  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOIN- 

miiuitiou  of  the  heretics,  and  finally  in  the  annexation  of 
the  county  of  Toulouse  by  the  crown  of  France.  The 
AValdenses,  in  a  more  remote  country,  in  the  valleys  of 
eastern  Switzerland  and  Savoy,  survived  a  persecution 
which  was  both  severe  and  long  continued.  Through 
their  earnest  devotion  to  the  study  of  the  Bible  in  the 
vernacular,  they  exercised  a  considerable  influence  in 
many  lands  of  continental  Europe,  though  their  share  in 
the  general  pre-reformation  movement  has  sometimes 
been  greatly  exaggerated.  They  seem  to  have  received 
some  new  impulse  themselves  from  the  followers  of  Huss, 
and  when  the  Eeformation  finally  came  they  acknowl- 
edged the  similarity  of  its  principles  with  their  own,  and 
associated  themselves  frequently  with  Protestant  organ- 
izations of  a  Calvinistic  type. 

A  hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  in  the  last  half  of  the 
fourteenth  century,  a  revolt  of  the  same  kind  occurred  in 
England.  It  was  at  the  time  of  England's  first  great 
literary  age — the  time  of  Chaucer  and  Gower  and  Lang- 
land.  It  closely  followed  an  age  of  great  military  glory 
— the  victories  of  Crecy  and  of  Poitiers  and  almost  as 
glorious  victories  over  the  Scotch.  The  lower  classes 
felt  the  stimulus  of  such  an  age,  and,  in  Wat  Tyler's 
insiirrection  demanded  the  reform  of  old  abuses  and  new 
guarantees  for  their  security.  It  is  possible  that  even 
without  the  vigorous  leadership  of  Wycliffe  so  favorable 
an  age  would  have  produced  a  demand  for  a  religious 
reformation.  As  it  was,  the  demand  which  was  made 
seems  almost  wholly  the  result  of  his  personal  influence, 
of  his  earnest  spirit  and  his  deeply  inquiring  mind.  In 
AVyclifie's  work  there  was  an  attempted  reformation  of 
theology  and  of  religion,  of  Christian  doctrines  and  of  the 
Christian  life  in  about  equal  proportions,  and,  from  the 
peculiar  situation  of  things  in  England,  it  involved  polit- 
ical ideas  not  necessarily  connected  with  the  others.     It 


THE   REFORMATION  419 

has  been  said  that  Wycliffe  "  disowTied  and  combated 
almost  every  distinguishing  feature  of  the  medieval  and 
papal  church,  as  contrasted  with  the  Protestant."  '  His 
"  poor  priests  "  undoubtedly  were  messengers  of  good  to 
the  poorer  classes,  and  the  fact  that  so  large  a  number  of 
manuscripts  as  one  hundred  and  sixty-five,  containing 
larger  or  smaller  parts  of  his  translation  of  the  Scriptures, 
has  been  found,  shows  conclusively  how  widely  the  copies 
were  circulated  and  how  carefully  they  were  preserved. 
The  division  of  political  parties  in  England  during  Wy- 
cliife's  life  served  to  protect  him  and  his  followers  from 
serious  persecution ;  but  after  the  accession  of  the  House 
of  Lancaster  to  the  throne  this  reason  no  longer  existed, 
and  the  church  had  her  way  wdth  the  heretics.  In  1401 
the  first  English  statute  was  passed  punishing  wrong 
theological  opinions  with  death,^  and,  in  the  few  years 
following,  the  Lollards,  as  Wyclifte's  followers  were 
called,  Avere  apparently  exterminated. 

If  Wycliffe's  influence  died  out  in  England  it  was  con- 
tinued upon  the  continent  in  the  last  great  religious 
rebellion  against  the  medieval  church  which  preceded 
Luther's.  The  close  connection  which  was  established 
between  the  English  and  Bohemian  courts,  and  between 
the  Universities  of  Prague  and  Oxford,  as  a  result  of  the 
marriage  of  Bichard  11.  and  Anne  of  Bohemia,  brought 
some  Bohemian  students  into  contact  i^ath  Wycliffe's 
teachings  and  led  to  the  carrying  of  his  writings  to  their 
fatherland.  The  reform  movement  which  resulted  in  Bo- 
hemia, whose  leader  w^as  John  Huss,  followed  in  all  es- 
sential matters  the  ideas  of  Wycliffe,  but  it  placed  the 
strongest  emphasis  upon  other  points,  such,  for  example, 

'  Fisher,  Reformation,  p.  60. 

'  Up  to  this  time  there  had  been  no  heresy  of  importance  in  England. 
On  the  influence  of  Wj'cliffe  on  tlie  later  religious  history  of  England 
see  Poole,  Wycliffe,  p.  118. 


420  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

as  the  communion  in  two  kinds,  from  which  one  wing  of 
the  Hussites,  the  Utraquists,  derived  its  name.  Huss 
himself  did  not  lay  so  much  stress,  perhaps,  upon  the 
translation  of  the  Scriptures  into  the  language  of  the 
people,  but  his  appeal  to  the  Bible  as  the  final  authority 
in  questions  of  belief,  and  his  assertion  of  his  right  to 
judge  of  its  meaning  for  himself,  were  clear  and  em- 
phatic, and  his  followers  were  as  earnest  translators  as 
Wycliiie  or  the  Waldensians  could  have  desired.  Huss 
and  his  disciple,  Jerome  of  Prague,  were  bui'ned  at  the 
stake  by  the  Council  of  Constance,  in  1415,  but  political 
reasons,  the  unending  strife  between  the  Slav  and  the 
German  in  part,  gave  his  cause  so  much  strength  in  Bo- 
hemia that,  after  twenty  years  of  desperate  warfare  the 
revolt  was  ended  by  a  compromise,  and  the  church  gave 
way  to  the  Hussites,  to  a  certain  extent,  in  the  points 
upon  which  they  insisted  most  strongly. 

These  three  are  the  most  prominent  of  the  attempts  at 
reformation  which  were  made  before  Luther.  They  were 
all  very  limited  in  their  influence.  None  of  them  had 
anything  more  than  an  indirect  effect  upon  the  larger 
pre-reformation  movement,  upon  the  general  demand 
for  reform,  and  the  general  preparation  for  Luther's 
vrork  which  was  being  made,  and  which  showed  itself  so 
plainly  when  the  time  came.  They  were  rather  signs 
that  such  a  demand  was  arising  than  causes  of  its  gather- 
ing strength.  They  were  the  most  prominent  signs  of 
this  under-current,  but  by  no  means  the  only  ones.  The 
whole  fifteenth  century  was  filled  with  evidence,  in  the 
case  of  individuals  or  small  bodies  of  men — sometimes 
the  taint  was  apparentlj'  almost  national,  and  excited  the 
alarm  of  the  clim'ch,^  or  affected  ecclesiastical  officers  of 

""  See  the  recent  discovery  of  evidence  which  indicates  a  widespread 
demand  among  the  hisliops  of  Spain  for  reformation  on  the  same  lines 
as  Luther's,  referred  to  in  tlie  London  Academy,  1893,  p.  197. 


THE   REFORMATIOlSr  421 

high  rank — evidence  of  dissatisfaction  wdth  the  practical 
Christianity  of  the  day,  or  of  a  leaning  toward  theolog- 
ical explanations  almost  or  quite  Protestant  in  character. 
These  cases,  are,  however,  mostly  independent  of  one 
another,  and  independent  of  the  larger  revolts  which 
have  been  noticed.  Nor  upon  Luther  himself  did  these 
attempted  reformations  have  any  influence.  All  the 
positions  which  were  afterward  taken  by  him,  which 
brought  him  into  a  necessary  conflict  with  the  Eoman 
church,  he  had  taken  before  he  knew  anything  essential 
of  the  work  of  his  forerunners  in  the  same  line. 

If  these  premature  rebellions  against  the  medieval 
church  Avere  not  among  the  immediate  influences  lead- 
ing to  the  Reformation,  they  were  certainlj-  of  the  same 
essential  nature.  Two  features  which  are  characteristic 
of  them  all  are  of  great  significance  in  this  direction. 
They  all  asserted  that  the  Christianity  of  their  time 
differed  in  some  important  particulars  from  the  primi- 
tive Christianity,  and  that  a  return  must  be  made  to  the 
earlier  usage.  They  differed  somewhat  from  one  another 
in  the  particulars  selected,  but  all  alike  asserted  the  im- 
portant principle  that  the  original  Christianity  is  the 
ultimate  standard,  and  that  the  professions  of  every  age 
must  be  judged  by  it,  as  recorded  in  the  Scriptures.  In 
the  second  place,  they  all  demanded  that  the  right  of 
every  individual  Christian  to  study  the  Bible  and  to 
reach  his  own  conclusions  should  be  recognized  by  the 
church.  These  two  principles — the  appeal  to  the  origi- 
nal sources  and  the  right  of  individual  investigation — 
were  established  in  the  intellectual  world  by  the  Renais- 
sance, but  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  bear  in  mind 
the  fact  that  they  had  both  been  definitely  asserted,  and 
with  a  more  or  less  clear  consciousness,  in  the  line  of 
religious  advancement  before  the  influence  of  the  Re- 
naissance began  to  be  felt.    It  will  be  necessary  to  return 


422  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

to  this  point  when  we  reach  the  beginning  of  the  Eefor- 
mation  proper. 

But  all  these  attempts  at  reformation,  large  and  small, 
had  failed,  as  had  those  of  the  early  fifteenth  century  to 
reform  its  government,  leaving  the  church  as  thoroughly 
medieval  in  doctrine  and  in  practical  religion  as  it  was  in 
polity.  It  was  the  one  power,  therefore,  belonging  to 
the  middle  ages  which  still  stood  unaffected  by  the  new- 
forces  and  opposed  to  them.  In  other  directions  the 
changes  had  been  many,  here  nothing  had  been  changed. 
And  its  resisting  power  was  very  great.  Endowed  with 
large  wealth,  strong  in  numbers  in  every  state,  with  no 
lack  of  able  and  thoroughly  trained  minds,  its  interests, 
as  it  regarded  them,  in  maintaining  the  old  were  enor- 
mous, and  its  power  of  defending  itself  seemed  scarcely 
to  be  broken. 

In  this  state  of  things  is  to  be  found  the  explanation  of 
the  fact  that  the  reformation  of  the  church  was  so  much 
more  revolutionary  and  violent  than  the  corresponding 
change  in  other  directions.  Everywhere  else  the  same 
revolution  had  really  been  wrought.  In  some  cases  there 
had  been  an  appeal  to  revolutionary  methods  in  matters 
of  detail,  but,  in  the  main,  the  change  had  been  a  gradual 
transformation  by  which  the  new  had  been,  almost  uncon- 
sciously, put  in  place  of  the  old.  But  the  church  had 
been  strong  enough  to  resist  successfully  any  gradual 
transformation  or  any  change  of  details,  so  that  when  the 
change  did  come,  it  necessarily  came  suddenly  and  vio- 
lently, and  with  incomplete  results.  The  new  forces  had 
not  been  destroyed  because  they  had  been  prevented 
from  producing  their  natural  results.  They  had  been 
merely  dammed  up  until  they  gathered  an  irresistible 
weight. 

Nor  was  the  preparation  for  the  Reformation  confined 
to  the  religious  and  the  ecclesiastical.     The  discontent 


THP:   KEFOIIMATION  423 

under  the  injustice  and  abuses  in  the  management  of 
the  church ;  the  demand  for  a  moral  reformation  in  the 
lives  of  the  clergy ;  the  feeling,  less  definite  and  con- 
scious but  still  not  slight,  of  opposition  to  the  absolutism 
of  the  papacy ;  and  the  still  less  clearly  formulated  but 
deep-seated  dissatisfaction  with  the  mechanical  and  for- 
mal Christianity  of  the  church,  as  being  untrue  to  its 
original  spiritual  character,  these  feelings  were  very 
widely  extended — European  so  far  as  the  middle  classes 
were  concerned,  Teutonic,  at  least,  in  the  case  of  the 
lower  classes  who  sufiered  the  most  severely  from  the 
abuses  complained  of,  and  had  the  least  opportunity  for 
redress.  These  feelings  constituted  an  indispensable 
preparation  for  the  Reformation,  but  other  conditions 
were  equally  necessary  to  its  complete  success. 

The  revolution  which  had  been  wrought  in  the  intel- 
lectual world  in  the  century  between  Huss  and  Luther 
was  one  of  the  indispensable  conditions.  At  the  death 
of  Huss  the  West  had  only  just  begun  the  study  of  Greek. 
Since  that  date,  the  great  body  of  classical  literature  had 
been  recovered,  and  the  sciences  of  philological  and  his- 
torical criticism  thoroughly  established.  As  a  result, 
Luther  had  at  his  command  a  well-developed  method 
and  an  apparatus  of  exegesis  and  research  impossible  to 
any  earlier  reformer,  and  without  these  his  translation 
of  the  Bible,  and  the  arguments  of  all  the  early  Protes- 
tants, so  largely  historical  in  character,  would  have  been 
wanting  in  many  things.  But  also  the  world  had  be- 
come familiar  with  independent  investigation,  and  with 
the  proclamation  of  new  views  and  the  upsetting  of  old 
ones.  By  no  means  the  least  of  the  great  services  of 
Erasmus  to  civilization  had  been  to  hold  up  before  all 
the  world  so  conspicuous  an  example  of  the  scholar  fol- 
lowing, as  his  inalienable  right,  the  tnith  as  he  found  it 
wherever  it  appeared  to  lead  him,  and  honest  in  his  pub- 


424  medip:val  civilizatiox 

lie  utterances  to  the  results  of  his  studies.  He  did  not 
convince  all  the  world  of  his  right.  But  his  was  the 
crowning  work  of  a  century  which  had  produced  in  the 
general  public  a  greatly  changed  attitude  of  mind  toward 
intellectual  independence  since  the  days  of  Huss,  The 
printing-press  was  of  itself  almost  enough  to  account  for 
Luther's  success  as  compared  with  his  predecessors. 
"Wycliflfe  made  almost  as  direct  and  vigorous  an  appeal 
to  the  public  at  large,  and  "  with  an  amazing  industry  he 
issued  tract  after  tract  in  the  tongue  of  the  people ; "  but 
Luther  had  a  great  advantage  in  the  rapid  multiplication 
of  copies  and  in  their  cheapness,  and  he  covered  Europe 
with  the  issues  of  his  press.  The  discovery  of  America, 
the  finding  of  a  sea  route  to  India  and  the  beginning  of 
a  world-commerce,  the  opening  of  another  world  of  ex- 
periences in  the  recovered  knowledge  of  history  and  of 
literature,  the  great  inventions,  a  re\dved  rapidity  of 
intercourse  throughout  Europe,  and  a  new  sense  of  com- 
munity interests,  indeed,  all  the  results  of  the  fifteenth 
century  that  can  be  mentioned  had  combined  to  create  a 
new  spirit  and  a  new  atmosphere.  Luther  spoke  to  a 
very  different  public  from  that  which  Wycliffe  or  Huss 
had  addressed — a  public  European  in  extent,  and  one  not 
merely  familiar  with  the  assertion  of  new  ideas  but  tol- 
erant, in  a  certain  way,  of  the  innovator,  and  expectant 
of  great  things  in  the  future. 

The  political  situation  in  Europe  also,  at  the  time  of 
Luther,  was,  to  all  appearance  at  least  an  essential  con- 
dition of  the  ultimate  success  of  the  Eeformation.  The 
large  possessions  brought  together  through  the  fortunate 
marriages  of  the  Hapsburgs  had  been  united  T\-ith  those 
which  the  diplomatic  skill  of  Ferdinand  the  Catholic  had 
acquired.  The  "  ciA-il  arm,"  as  represented  by  the  Emperor 
Charles  Y.,  would  seem  to  have  been  strong  enough  to 
deal  imhesitatiugly  with  any  imwelcome  religious  opin- 


THE   KEFOKMATIOX  425 

ion  which  might  arise.  But  Charles  never  found  a  mo- 
ment ^vhen  he  could  exert  this  strength  against  Protes- 
tantism, until  it  was  too  late.  On  the  west  was  the  rival 
power  of  France,  less  in  extent  and  apparent  resources, 
but  not  scattered  like  his  own  power,  closely  concen- 
trated in  the  hands  of  the  brilliant  and  ambitious  Fran- 
cis I.  On  the  east  was  the  equally  dangerous  Turkish 
empire,  still  at  the  height  of  its  strength,  and  determined 
to  push  its  conquests  farther  up  the  Danube  valley.. 
Three  times  after  the  Diet  of  Worms,  where  Luther  was 
originally  condemned,  when  Charles  seemed  free  to  use 
his  whole  power  for  the  extermination  of  heresy,  follow- 
ing no  doubt  his  personal  inclination  as  well  as  what  he 
judged  to  be  his  political  interests — in  1526,  in  1529,  and 
again  in  1530 — was  he  forced,  each  time  by  some  sud- 
den turn  in  the  affairs  of  Europe,  some  new  combination 
against  him,  sometimes  with  the  pope  among  his  enemies, 
to  grant  a  momentary  toleration.  In  1532  was  concluded 
the  definite  Peace  of  Nuremberg,  the  price  of  Protestant 
assistance  against  the  Turks,  by  which  a  formal  agree- 
ment was  made  to  allow  matters  to  remain  as  the}^  were 
until  the  meeting  of  a  general  council.  Under  this  ar- 
rangement Protestantism  gained  so  much  strength  that 
when,  in  1547,  the  emperor  at  last  found  himself  able  to 
attack  its  adherents,  he  could  not  entirely  subdue  them, 
although  he  nearly  succeeded. 

Such,  then,  Avas  the  long  and  general  preparation  for 
the  Reformation  —  religious,  intellectual,  and  political. 
So  deep  was  the  current  setting  in  this  direction  that 
nothing  could  have  held  it  back.  Lcfevre  and  Zwingli 
and  Luther,  beginning  at  the  same  time  in  three  different 
countries,  and  entirely  independent  of  one  another,  the 
same  work,  show  clearly  how  inevitable  the  movement  was. 
We  associate  the  beginning  of  the  Peformation  especially 
with  the  name  of  Luther,  and  correctly  so.     His  attack 


426  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

was  directed  so  squarely  at  the  central  point  of  tlie  papal 
defences  ;  he  began  it  in  so  conspicuous  a  way,  and  upon 
a  question  of  such  general  interest ;  it  was  connected, 
also,  so  directly  with  the  empire  ;  and  the  preparation 
for  it  extended  so  far  down  among  the  people  to  whom 
he  immediately  appealed,  that  it  attracted  at  once  uni- 
versal attention,  and  became  the  forefront  of  the  whole 
European  movement.  But  it  is  as  certain  as  any  un- 
enacted  history  can  be  that  this  was  an  irrepressible 
revolution.  If  Luther  had  been  weak,  or  if  he  had  been 
a  coward,  some  other  leader  would  have  taken  the  com- 
mand, and  the  Reformation  would  have  occm-red  in 
the  same  age,  and  with  the  same  general  characteristics. 
It  is  not  possible  to  understand  this  great  movement  if 
this  inevitable  character  is  not  appreciated.  It  must  be 
recognized  as  being,  like  the  French  Revolution,  the 
bursting  forth  of  the  deeper  forces  of  history,  through 
the  obstacles  that  confined  them,  sweeping  a  clear  road 
for  a  ncAV  advance. 

Luther  did  not  create  the  Reformation.  He  was  the 
popular  leader  who  translated  into  the  terms  of  common 
life,  into  direct  and  passionate  words  that  came  close 
home  to  men  of  every  rank,  the  principles  of  religious, 
ecclesiastical,  and  intellectual  reform,  which  had  been 
proclaimed  before  him  in  more  remote  waj^s,  and  turned 
into  great  historic  forces  the  influences  which  had  been 
slowly  engendered  in  the  world  of  scholars  and  thinkers. 
He  was,  though  independent  himself,  the  popularizer  of 
other  men's  labors. 

But  the  Reformation,  as  it  really  occurred,  was  large- 
ly his  work.  His  powerful  personality  impressed  itself 
upon  the  whole  movement.  He  gave  it  form  and  direc- 
tion, and  personal  traits  of  his  became  characteristics  of 
it,  not  so  much  perhaps,  because  they  were  his  personal 


THE   REFORMATION  427 

traits,  as  because  they  were  an  expression  in  tlie  individ- 
ual of  the  tendencies  of  the  age.  Of  tliese  characteris- 
tics there  are  four  which  are  noteworthy,  as  especially 
general  and  lasting. 

In  the  first  place,  as  the  starting-point  of  all,  Luther 
was  one  of  those  not  infrequent  men,  usually  men  of 
great  moral  force  and  power,  who  are  perpetually  driven 
by  a  sense  of  personal  guilt  and  sin,  unfelt  by  the  gen- 
eral run  of  men,  and  by  a  compelling  necessity,  to  find 
in  some  way  a  counterbalancing  sense  of  reconciliation 
with  God.  This  feeling  it  was  which  led  him  into  the 
monastery  against  so  many  influences  to  keep  him  out. 
But  he  did  not  free  himself  from  it  by  this  stej?.  He 
speedily  found  the  insufiiciency  of  the  best  means  at  the 
disposal  of  the  cloister,  of  worship  and  holy  works,  of 
penance,  and  private  prayer,  and  spiritual  meditation, 
to  meet  the  need  which  he  felt. 

This  was  because  of  another  characteristic  of  Luther's 
mind,  as  deep  and  "impelling  as  his  sense  of  sin.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  deny  that  monasticism  has  furnished 
a  complete  and  final  spiritual  refuge  to  thousands  of  pi- 
ous souls  in  every  age.  But  they  have  been,  as  a  rule,  of 
the  contemplative  and  unquestioning  kind.  This  Luther 
ceiiainly  was  not.  His  intellectual  nature  was  as  active 
as  his  moral.  The  demand  for  a  philosophical  theory  of 
the  process  by  which  reconciliation  with  God  takes  place, 
which  should  be  satisfactory  to  his  intellect,  was  as  im- 
perative as  the  demand  for  the  reconciliation  itself,  and 
the  one  was  not  possible  for  him  Avithout  the  other. 

The  strong  theological  or  philosophical  bent  of  Luth- 
er's mind,  this  demand  for  an  intellectual  explanation  be- 
fore the  soul  could  be  at  rest,  is  one  of  the  vital  points  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Reformation,  and  one  of  the  domi- 
nating characteristics  of  Protestantism  so  long  as  the 
direct  influence  of  the  Reformation  age  lasted.     It  was 


428  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  union  in  Luther's  mind  of  these  two  elements— the 
keen  sense  of  guilt  and  the  demand  for  a  reasonable 
theory  of  the  means  of  relief — that  led  him  to  the  fii'st, 
and  whoU}^  unconscious  step  in  his  revolt  against  the 
prevailing  church  system.  Had  either  existed  alone 
he  might  have  been  satisfied  Avith  things  as  they  were. 
But  when,  under  the  heavy  spiritual  burden  which  he 
felt,  he  turned,  with  his  power  of  sharp  analysis,  to  the 
accepted  doctrine  of  the  efficacy  of  works,  of  acquired 
merit,  it  failed  to  satisfy  his  reason,  although  he  tested 
it  in  the  genuine  ascetic  spirit.  It  seemed  absurd  to 
him  that  anything  which  he  might  do  should  have  any 
bearing  upon  the  removal  of  his  guilt  in  the  sight  of 
God.  If  a  sense  of  forgiveness  in  which  he  could  rest 
was  to  be  found,  he  must  obtain  from  some  source  an 
explanation  of  the  method  of  salvation  which  should  dif- 
fer from  the  prevailing  one  in  placing  less  emphasis  upon 
the  action  of  the  individual  and  more  upon  the  divine 
agency. 

Luther  seems  to  have  worked  himself  out  from  this 
state  of  doubt  and  difficulty  through  long  and  heav}^  ex- 
perience, and  with  the  aid  of  slight  suggestions  received 
from  various  sources,  from  Staupitz,  the  Vicar  of  his 
Order,  from  the  writings  of  St.  Bernard  and  of  Gerson, 
and,  perhaps,  from  men  less  kno^^Ti  to  history.  He  had 
been  from  the  beginning  of  his  Ufe  as  a  monk  a  most 
earnest  student  of  the  Bible,  as  prescribed  by  the  rules 
of  his  Order,  but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  found  any 
satisfactory  answer  to  his  needs  in  the  Bible  until  the 
suggestion  which  served  as  a  guide  to  him  in  his  search 
had  reached  him  from  some  outside  soiu'ce  or  from  his 
own  experience.  When  he  had  obtained  from  such 
sources  the  suggestion  of  justification  by  faith,  of  salva- 
tion as  the  free  gift  of  God,  of  forgiveness  of  sins  as  the 
direct  result  of  the  redemption  made  by  Christ,  accept- 


THE    REFORMATION  429 

ed  by  the  immediate  faitli  of  the  sinner,  he  found  this 
idea  abundantly  supported  in  the  Scriptures,  and  easily 
wrought  into  a  logical  and  systematic  theory  under  the 
influence  of  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Paul.  Luther  had 
read  St.  Augustine  to  some  extent  before  he  had  hit 
upon  the  idea  of  justification  by  faitli,  but  it  was  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  later  scholastic  theology,  which 
had  no  sympathy  with  the  main  current  of  St.  Augustine's 
thought,  and  he  had  been  blind  to  his  meaning.  Now, 
however,  he  had  found  the  key,  and  under  the  influence 
of  his  new  reading  of  St.  Augustine,  the  theoretical  side 
of  his  belief  grew  rapidly  into  systematic  form,  though 
to  a  form  slightly  different  from  that  of  his  teacher,  and 
he  found  his  confidence  that  he  had  discovered  the  truth 
greatly  strengthened.  So  thoroughly  in  sympathy  did 
he  become  with  the  ideas  of  the  great  theologian  of  the 
West  that  he  was  able  to  detect  the  spuriousuess  of  a 
work  on  penances,  which  had  long  passed  under  St.  Au- 
gustine's name,  because  it  was  out  of  harmony  with  his 
system. 

This  result,  the  formation  of  a  clearer  theory  of  justi- 
fication by  faith  as  the  confident  and  satisfactory  answer 
to  the  need  of  personal  reconciliation  with  God  which  he 
felt,  Avas  the  first  step  in  the  Reformation,  the  great  step 
of  the  preparation  of  the  leader  to  take  command  of  the 
movement  when  the  crisis  should  arise  which  would  de- 
mand a  leader.  These  results  Luther  did  not  reach  until 
after  he  had  been  transferred  to  the  University  of  Wit- 
tenberg, but  they  were  in  definite  shape  and  part  of  his 
university  teaching  before  his  attention  had  been  called 
in  any  especial  way  to  their  bearing  upon  the  current 
doctrine  of  indulgences. 

When  Luther  had  once  reached  these  conclusions  he 
held  them  and  defended  them  Avith  the  s])irit  and  the 
methods  of  the  genuine  humanist.     He  attacked  with 


430  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

vigor  Aristotle  and  the  schoolmen.  He  appealed  to  the 
original  Christianity  and  to  its  early  documents  as  the 
only  valid  evidence,  and  he  handled  these  documents  in 
a  critical  spirit.  He  called  in  the  evidence  of  history 
against  the  papal  pretensions,  and  he  accepted  without 
hesitation  the  results  which  his  new  position  logically 
involved  in  opposition  to  the  reigning  theories  of  the 
church,  the  results,  that  is,  of  individual  independence 
and  of  the  right  of  private  judgment,  even  so  far  as  to  a 
complete  break  Avith  the  church.  Erasmus  himself  was 
scarcely  more  a  child  of  the  Renaissance  in  spirit  and 
in  methods  than  Luther.  This  is  the  third  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  Luther's  work  which  were  of  wide  and  per- 
manent influence  in  the  larger  movement.  If  the  great 
principles  which  are  seen  and  stated  by  the  thinkers  ever 
give  a  fresh  impulse  to  the  world,  and  turn  the  currents 
of  history  in  new  directions,  it  is  because  they  are  taken 
possession  of  by  some  popular  leader  and  transformed 
from  the  abstract  into  the  concrete,  identified  with  some 
great  interest  of  life  held  dear  by  the  masses  of  men. 
This  Luther  did  for  the  principle  of  free  thought.  It 
had  been  asserted  long  before  him  in  the  world  of  schol- 
ars, but  Luther  now  associated  it  forever  with  one  of  the 
dearest  interests  of  the  race,  its  religious  aspirations,  so 
that  in  the  future  for  every  Bruno  who  might  be  found 
ready  to  die  for  the  philosopher's  freedom  of  thought,  a 
thousand  simple  men  would  gladly  embrace  the  stake  for 
the  liberty  to  believe  in  God  as  they  understood  him, 
and  the  right  of  free  thought  was  henceforth  counted 
among  the  most  sacred  rights  of  the  individual. 

But  it  must  be  admitted — so  far  as  the  cA^dence  allows 
us  to  judge,  and  it  seems  to  be  conclusive— that  Luther 
did  not  reach  the  theological  position  which  necessitated 
his  rebellion  against  the  church  and  his  assertion  of  the 
right  of  free  thought,  as  a  result  of  the  influence  of  the 


THE   REFORMATION  431 

Renaissance  npou  liim,  nor  by  the  use  of  the  humanistic 
methods  of  study.  On  the  contrary,  it  seems  that  he  was 
led  to  adopt  the  principles  of  the  Renaissance  because 
that  result  was  involved  in  his  determination  to  maintain 
the  theological  conclusions  which  he  had  reached.  It 
was  along  the  medieval  road  that  Luther  had  advanced 
— the  study  of  the  schoolmen,  dependence  upon  specula- 
tion and  authority,  the  use  of  the  Bible  as  a  theological 
text-book — and  the  result  which  he  reached  was  merely 
the  putting  of  one  theological  system  in  place  of  another. 
Recent  and  more  careful  researches  appear  to  make  it 
certain  that,  even  in  his  student  days,  in  the  university 
of  Erfurt,  and  before  his  entry  into  the  cloister,  Luther 
did  not  come  under  the  direct  influence  of  Humanism  to 
any  such  extent  as  was  formerly  supposed.  It  may  have 
been  that  its  results  and  its  spirit  were  in  the  air,  and 
were  absorbed  by  Luther  unconsciously;  but  it  is  far 
more  likely  that  he  arrived  at  its  fundamental  position 
from  another  side,  as  the  Waldenses  and  Wycliffe  and 
Huss  had  done,  before  the  Renaissance  began,  and  found 
himself  in  harmony  with  the  principle  of  free  inquiry  and 
free  opinion,  because  that  principle  seemed  the  unavoid- 
able corollary  of  his  answer  to  the  question,  which  was 
for  all  the  reformers,  early  and  late,  a  purely  religious 
question  :  What  is  the  means  of  union  between  God  and 
man  revealed  to  us  in  Christianity,  and  what  does  it  re- 
quire of  us  ? 

This  fact  does  not  make  Luther's  indebtedness  to  the 
Renaissance  any  the  less.  The  position  of  opposition  to 
old  beliefs  which  Luther's  conclusions  forced  him  to  take 
was  one  with  which  the  world  was  now  familiar,  thanks 
to  that  movement,  and  the  emancipated  judgment  and 
conscience  of  thousands  in  every  land  were  ready  to  fol- 
low him,  or,  if  circumstances  rendered  it  impossible  for 
some  to  follow,  at  least  to  sympathize  fully  with  the  stand 


432  MEDIEVAL  CIVILIZATION 

he  had  taken  and  with  his  aims.  And  we  have  indicated 
the  aid  which  he  received  in  other  ways  from  the  results 
of  the  revival  of  learning.  But  many  things  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  Reformation  and  of  early  Protestantism  will 
remain  difficult  to  understand,  unless  it  be  remembered 
that  if  Luther  was  a  child  of  the  Renaissance,  as  has  been 
said,  he  was  an  adopted  child.  He  was  not  by  nature 
the  heir  of  its  spirit,  nor  of  all  its  tendencies.  He  ac- 
cepted its  principles  and  its  methods  because  they  were 
necessary  to  him,  not  because  he  had  been  formed  under 
their  influence,  and  must  therefore  give  them  expression 
in  his  action.  And  he  never  adopted  them  completely 
nor  in  all  their  logical  results.  He  asserted  for  himself 
the  right  of  free  thought.  But  when  the  same  principle 
began  to  be  applied  against  his  doctrines  by  the  numer- 
ous sects  which  sprang  up  as  one  of  the  first  and  natural 
results  of  the  Reformation,  he  did  not  recognize  their 
right  with  equal  clearness.  Free  thought  meant  the  fi-ee- 
dom  of  the  conscience  to  hold  the  truth,  and  as  the  sys- 
tem which  he  held  contained  the  truth,  no  opposing 
doctriue  could  have  any  rights.  As  thoroughly  charac- 
teristic of  Luther  as  any  of  the  three  traits  which  have 
been  mentioned — his  spiritual  sense,  his  philosophical 
tendency,  and  his  humanistic  spirit— w^as  this  fourth 
one  also  of  intellectual  narrowTiess,  was  the  fact  that  he 
remained  to  the  end  of  his  life,  upon  one  side  of  his 
nature,  a  medieval  monk.  That  this  was  in  complete 
contradiction  Avith  his  own  fundamental  position,  and 
with  the  methods  by  which  he  defended  himself,  gave 
him  no  uneasiness.  He  had  not  the  slightest  conscious- 
ness of  self-contradiction,  nor  had  any  of  the  early  Prot- 
estants, who  were  like  him  in  this  regard.  So  intense 
was  their  interest  in  the  theological  theories  which  seemed 
to  them  to  contain  the  whole  truth  that  their  eyes  were 
closed  to  all  else,  and  it  was  only  here  and  there  diu'ing 


THE   REFORMATION  433 

tlie  first  two  hundred  years  after  tlie  Reformation  that 
official  Protestantism  really  escaped  from  the  medieval 
point  of  vieAv  and  became  true  to  itself. 

By  a  medieval  method  Luther  had  reached  a  result 
which  was  mainly  intellectual  in  character,  and  which 
was  to  bring  him,  in  some  of  the  most  decisive  conse- 
quences of  his  work,  into  harmony  with  the  great  intel- 
lectual movement  of  the  end  of  the  middle  ages.  But 
the  strong  impelling  force  in  Luther's  development,  it 
must  be  remembered,  that  which  had  started  him  in  this 
direction  and  which  carried  him  on  irresistibly  to  the 
conclusions  he  had  reached,  was  the  spiritual  necessity  of 
personal  reconciliation  with  God,  a  religious  need  so 
deeply  felt  that  its  satisfaction  involved  as  matters  of 
secondary  import  all  the  rest,  rebellion  against  the  old 
church  with  its  infallible  authority,  the  adoption  of  all 
the  current  popular  deniands  of  religious  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal reform,  as  closely  related  ends,  and  of  the  principles 
established  by  the  Benaissance  as  indispensable  allies. 
And  now  it  must  be  noticed  that  this  religious  element 
in  Luther's  character  was  also  the  moving  force  in  his 
next  step,  in  the  first  public  act  of  his  wdiich  opened  the 
Reformation . 

Not  very  long  after  Luther  had  reached  the  results  in 
which  he  rested,  and  after  he  had  begun  to  teach  them 
in  his  lectures  on  the  Bible,  Tetzel  came  into  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Wittenberg  preaching  a  peculiarly  crude  and 
debasing  theory  of  the  efficacy  of  indulgences  for  the 
forgiveness  of  sins — there  can  be  no  doubt  of  this,  how- 
ever much  Tetzel  may  have  modified  the  worst  crudities 
when  he  came  to  put  his  words  into  print— and  attract- 
ing much  attention  among  the  people.  Luther  was  in- 
stantly aroused.  He  had  already  preached  against  the 
popular  trust  in  indulgences,  but  now  something  furthc^r 
was  demanded  and  the  ninety-five  theses  were  posted. 
28 


434  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

In  this  act  Luther  was  following  a  common  university- 
custom.  The  theses  were  propositions  which  he  proposed 
to  defend  in  set  debate  against  all-comers.  They  stated 
the  beliefs  on  the  subject  which  Luther  had  reached, 
but  they  also  contained  some  things  of  which  he  was 
not  entirely  sure,  and  some  things  whose  full  bearing 
he  did  not  see.  They  were  stated  in  scholastic  form, 
and  not  intended  for  the  general  circulation  which  they 
received. 

It  is  certain  that  the  moving  purpose  in  this  step  of 
Luther's  was  religious  rather  than  theological.  The 
form  was  theological,  but  what  he  had  most  nearly  at 
heart  was  the  practical  object.  It  was  to  save  men  from 
a  fatal  delusion,  from  trust  in  a  false  and  destroying 
method  of  salvation,  and  to  bring  them  back  to  the  trae 
Christian  faith  as  he  saw  it  that  he  attacked  the  popular 
ideas.  All  the  other  things  which  followed  as  later  con- 
sequences of  this  action  were  unintended  and  unforeseen 
by  him.  In  regard  to  some  of  them,  if  he  had  seen  that 
he  was  likely  to  be  led  on  to  them,  he  would  undoubtedly, 
feeling  as  he  then  did,  have  hesitated  long  before  taking 
the  first  step.  He  believed  that  he  was  defending  the 
theology  of  the  church  against  ideas  which  had  become 
prevalent  but  which  were  nevertheless  abuses.  The 
seventj-first  of  his  theses  pronounces  a  woe  upon  those 
who  speak  against  the  truth  of  apostolic  indulgences, 
and  the  seventy-second  a  blessing  upon  those  w^ho  object 
to  the  loose  words  of  the  preachers  of  indulgences.  But 
the  leading  motive  of  his  action  was  not  his  wish  to  put 
the  true  theology  in  place  of  the  false  as  a  matter  of 
science,  it  was  his  zeal  for  the  souls  of  men,  lost,  as  he 
believed,  through  a  mistaken  belief. 

The  effect  of  the  publication  of  the  theses  was  a  sur- 
prise to  Luther.  In  two  weeks,  he  says,  they  had  gone 
through  aU  Germany.     In  four  weeks,  says  a  contempo- 


THE   REFORMATION  435 

rary,  tliey  had  gone  tliroiigli  all  Cliristendom  as  if  the 
angels  themselves  had  been  the  messengers.^  Luther 
had  intended  to  influence  opinion  in  Wittenberg  and 
vicinity,  scarcely  at  all  beyond,  but  the  effect  was  univer- 
sal, so  deep  was  the  preparation  for  them  which  no  one 
had  suspected.  Instinctively,  as  it  were,  the  public 
recognized  the  declaration  of  war,  more  clearly  than  the 
leader  himself,  and  instantly  the  hosts  began  to  gather 
and  to  draw  up  against  one  another.  The  next  two  years 
was  a  period  of  rapid  development  in  Luther's  under- 
standing of  his  real  position  toward  the  old  church,  and 
of  what  he  would  be  obliged  to  do  if  he  was  resolved  to 
maintain  that  position.  It  was  because  he  had  reached 
his  position  by  the  pathway  of  inner  experience  that  he 
was  so  slow  to  realize  all  that  it  meant,  b^^t  the  logic  of 
the  events  which  followed  the  publication  of  the  theses 
was  sharp  and  clear. 

The  first  result  was  to  bring  Luther  to  see  that  some 
points  which  he  had  stated  were  in  reality  opposed  to 
the  accepted  church  theology,  and  not  in  harmony  with 
it,  as  he  had  thought.  He  was  also  made  to  realize  that 
the  question  of  the  relation  of  the  pope  to  the  church  was 
necessarily  involved.  This  was  the  weak  spot  in  Luther's 
case,  and  was  especially  selected  by  his  opponents  for 
attack.  It  had  been  far  from  his  intention  to  raise  the 
question,  but  he  did  not  shrink  from  it  when  it  was 
pressed  upon  him.  It  was  in  this  direction,  indeed,  and 
not  so  much  in  any  other,  that  further  growth  was  nec- 
essary for  him.  He  began  believing  in  the  infallibility 
of  the  church  certainly,  if  not  in  that  of  the  pope,  and 
in  the  duty  of  the  individual  to  submit  his  judgment  to 
the  judgment  of  the  church.  But  the  attacks  which 
were  made  upon  him  during  these  two  years  forced  him 
to  clearer  views.  Step  by  step  he  was  led  on  from  his  as- 
'  Koestliu,  Martin  Lutli€i\  Vol.  I.,  p.  172, 


436  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

sertion  to  Cardinal  Cajetan  tliat  the  declaration  of  the 
pope  was  to  be  regarded  as  the  voice  of  God  only  when  it 
was  in  conformity  Avith  the  Bible,  and  his  statement  in 
writing  that  a  general  council  of  the  church  might  err,  to 
the  final  position  of  complete  rebellion,  into  which  he 
was  forced  by  the  skill  of  Dr.  Eck  in  the  great  debate  in 
Loipsic,  in  1519,  that  the  church  universal  might  be  in 
error  in  some  formally  adopted  declaration,  and  was  so 
regarding  Huss.  Henceforth  his  position  in  regard  to 
the  old  church  was  logically  complete.  He  must  make 
war  upon  it,  and  establish  an  independent  church  if  he 
could,  or  he  must  submit  and  be  burned  as  a  heretic. 
The  burning  of  the  pope's  bull,  in  December,  1520,  was 
only  an  especially  public  and  dramatic  repetition  of  dec- 
larations already  clearly  made. 

The  primary  meaning  of  the  Reformation  is  religious, 
It  was  a  religious  motive  from  which  the  reformers  act- 
ed, and  a  religious  result  which  they  sought  as  their  su- 
preme object.  In  this  direction  what  they  consciously 
attempted,  was  to  return  to  a  more  simple  and  truer 
Christianity  from  the  additions  and  corruptions  which 
the  middle  ages  had  introduced.  And  in  very  many 
and  very  essential  respects,  the  Reformation  did  make 
such  a  return.  In  ceremonies  and  in  forms  of  gov- 
ernment the  Protestant  of  any  name  is  undoubtedl}^ 
nearer  to  the  original  Christianity  than  the  Catholic.  In 
the  matter  of  the  abuses  and  oppressions  of  which  Eu- 
rope complained  so  bitterly  just  before  the  Reformation, 
not  merely  Avas  a  great  change  worked  in  Protestant 
lands,  but  also  in  the  Catholic  church  itself.  The  work 
of  Luther  forced  a  reformation  which  Avas,  in  the  most 
important  particulars,  thorough  and  complete.  •  It  is  true 
that  such  a  reform  Avould  have  been  made  in  the  Catho- 
lic church  in  time  A\dthout  Luther,  but  the  attack  Avliich 


THE   REFORMATION  437 

he  led  forced  a  more  speedy  and  perhaps  a  more  de- 
cided change  than  would  otherwise  have  taken  place. 
In  administration  and  in  morals  the  Catholic  church 
has  been,  since  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  a  re- 
formed church. 

In  regard  to  the  more  directly  religious  question 
which  the  reformers  had  especially  at  heart,  the  ques- 
tion of  the  reconciliation  of  the  sinner  with  God,  it  can 
hardly  be  denied  that  the  Reformation  was,  also,  a  re- 
turn to  a  simpler  and  truer  Christianity.  Divested  of 
technical  statement  the  work  of  the  Reformation  in  this 
respect  was  to  emphasize  the  immediate  personal  rela- 
tion between  God  and  man,  and  to  bring  into  practical 
consciousness  far  more  clearly  than  had  been  done  under 
the  old  system  the  fact  that  individual  faith  in  Christ  as 
the  Saviour  is  the  centre  and  source  of  the  religious  life.' 
Undoubtedly  this  fact  had  been  realized  by  thousands  of 
saintly  men  in  the  medieval  centuries,  undoubtedly,  also, 
the  religiously  cultivated  soul  may  realize  it  as  truly  in 
the  Roman  catholic  as  in  any  church,  but  it  is  also 
equally  certain  that  the  Protestant  church  keeps  this 
fact  much  more  clearly  and  distinctly  before  the  mass 
of  men  than  does  the  Catholic,  and  makes  its  full  real- 
ization easier  for  them.  The  crude  abuses  of  the  Catho- 
lic teaching  which  led  to  the  first  public  protest  of 
Luther  have  been  comparatively  rare  since  that  time. 
But  it  is  a  fact  of  easy  observation  that  the  doctrine 
of  that  church  upon  this  point  is  very  easily  misunder- 
stood by  the  more  ignorant,  and,  when  misunderstood, 
lends  itself  as  readily  to-day  as  in  the  days  of  Tetzel 

'  Dr.  Philip  Scliatf  says  :  ' '  Schleiermaclier  reduced  the  whole  differ- 
ence between  Romanism  and  Protestantism  to  the  formula,  '  Roman- 
ism makes  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  Christ  depend  on  his  rela- 
tion to  the  church,  Protestantism,  rice  vrri^a.  makes  the  relation  of  the 
individual  to  the  church  depend  on  his  relation  to  Christ.'" — Pam- 
phlet, Luther  Symposiac,  Union  Seminary,  1883. 


488  MEDIEVAL    CIVILIZATION 

to  debasing  beliefs  aud  to  practices  that  are  essentially 
pagan.' 

If,  however,  the  main  object  which  the  reformers 
sought  was  religious  their  way  of  looking  at  it  was  theo- 
logical, was  under  the  form  of  a  doctrine  rather  than  of 
a  principle  of  life.  The  improved  doctrinal  statement 
seemed  to  them  the  greatest  improvement  made.  It  was 
the  right  to  hold  this  for  which  they  contended.  It  was 
the  impossibility  of  holding  it  in  the  old  church  w^hich 
had  forced  them  to  withdraw  from  it  and  to  form  an 
independent  church.  Indeed  the  whole  religious  life 
seemed  to  them  so  completely  controlled  and  condi- 
tioned by  the  theological  opinion  that  they  were  dis- 
posed to  deny  the  possibility  of  its  existence  under  any 
form  of  doctrine  different  from  their  ovm,  and  that 
which  sustained  alike  the  Protestant  and  the  Catholic 
martyr  of  this  time  in  his  sufferings  was  not  merely  the 
religious  life  which  was  alike  in  both — no  Protestant 
can  doubt  this  who  studies  the  life  of  Sir  Thomas 
More— but  it  was  his  earnest  conviction  that  the  re- 
ligious life  of  which  he  was  conscious  was  inseparably 
bound  up  with  the  intellectual  system  which  he  held 
and  his  supreme  devotion  to  that  system  and  to  his 
rights  as  he  conceived  them  in  an  age  of  bitter  conflict 
of  opinion. 

This  prevailingly  theological  character  of  early  Protes- 
tantism has  ah'eady  been  emphasized.  But  certain  con- 
sequences of  it  in  modern  times  and  to-day  should  be 
noticed.  In  the  first  place,  it  made  the  more  zealous 
Protestants,  and  especially  those  who  were  under  an 
official  responsibility  for  the  safety  of  their  faith,  as  intol- 
erant of  opposing  or  dangerous  oj)inions  as  the  Catholic, 
and  for  the  same  reason,  the  supposed  vital  necessity  of 

'  See,  for  example,  the  Book  of  tlie  Scapulai-  and  the  beliefs  associated 
with  the  wearing  of  that  article  among  ignorant  Catholics. 


THE   REFORMATION"  439 

a  correct  theology.'  In  most  cases  state  churclies  as 
rigidly  orgauized  and  as  devotedly  supported  by  the 
laws,  took  the  place  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  system. 
The  roll  of  Protestant  martyrs  made  by  Protestant 
bigotry  is  not  a  short  nor  an  inglorious  one,  and  new 
theories  in  the  sciences  had  always  bitter  opposition  to 
meet  from  Protestaut  theologians.  Only  slowly,  and  aid- 
ed largely  by  commercial  considerations,  was  full  tol- 
eration established  as  the  rule,  but  it  has  been  reserved 
to  the  present  century,  with  a  few  glorious  exceptions, 
and  to  a  growing  understanding  of  the  true  position 
which  theological  opinion  holds  in  religion,  to  bring 
Protestantism  to  a  consciousness  of  its  own  logical  posi- 
tion, and  to  secure  complete  religious  liberty  in  Protes- 
tant states,  though  evidently  not  as  yet  with  the  univer- 
sal extinction  of  the  old  feelings. 

In  the  second  place,  the  strong  intellectual  tendency  in 
Protestantism  pushed  the  sermon  to  the  front  as  a  more 

'  The  following  passage,  quoted  in  Hiiusser's  Period  of  the  Reformation, 
p.  520  (Am.  ed.),  from  Hoheuegg,  Lutheran  court  theologian  of  Saxony 
during  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  is  an  interesting  example  :  "  For  it  is  as 
plain  as  that  the  sun  shines  at  midday,  that  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  is 
full  of  frightful  blasphemy,  horrible  error  and  mischief,  and  is  diamet- 
rically opposed  to  God's  holy  revealed  word.  To  take  up  arms  for  the 
Calvinists  is  nothing  else  than  to  serve  under  the  originator  of  Calvin- 
ism—the Devil.  We  ought,  indeed,  to  give  our  lives  for  our  brethren ; 
but  the  Calvinists  are  not  our  brethren  in  Christ ;  to  support  them  would 
be  to  offer  ourselves  and  our  children  to  Moloch.  We  ought  to  love 
our  enemies,  but  the  Calvinists  are  not  our  enemies  but  God's.'" 

John  Cotton,  in  his  argument  with  Roger  Williams  on  persecution, 
represents,  I  suppose,  fairly,  the  position  of  most  of  the  early  Protes- 
tants. He  says  :  "  I  doe  not  thinke  it  lawfuU  to  excommunicate  an 
Heretick,  much  lesse  to  persecute  him  with  the  civill  Sword,  till  it  may 
appeare.  even  by  just  and  full  conviction,  that  he  sinneth  not  out  of 
coniscience,  but  against  the  very  light  of  his  own  conscience." — Narra- 
r/anset  Club  Publications,  Vol.  II.,  p.  CI.  That  Cotton's  position  was 
exactly  the  Roman  Catholic  Williams  was  not  slow  to  point  out.  See 
Ibid.,  Vol.  IV.,  p.  57. 


440  M 1-:  I )  1 1^:  v  a  l  c  i  v  r  l  i  z  a  'i'  i  o  n 

prominent  portion  of  tlie  clmrcli  service  tliau  it  had  been. 
The  Catholic  was  and  is  more  a  religion  of  worship,  less 
a  religion  of  individual  thought  and  conviction.  Protes- 
tantism implies  more  intellectual  activity  among  the  lay 
membership  and  an  interest  on  their  part  in  the  problems 
of  theology.  When  there  was,  in  truth,  such  an  interest 
in  the  community  at  large  in  theological  discussion,  often 
the  most  intense  interest  of  the  time,  there  could  hardly 
be  too  many  or  too  long  sermons.  But  it  is  clear  that  a 
popular  interest  o£  the  old  kind  in  such  discussions  does 
not  exist  to-day.  It  would  not  be  possible  for  any  body 
of  average  Protestants  of  the  present  time  to  "beguile  the 
weariness"  of  a  long  sea-voyage  with  three  sermons  a  day^ 
of  the  Puritan  sort,  as  is  recorded  of  the  passengers  of  the 
Griffin,  on  its  way  to  the  Massachusetts  colony  in  1G33. 
From  this  fact  arises  one  of  the  practical  prolilems  which 
the  Protestant  churches  are  discussing — how  to  increase 
the  interest  in  the  sermon — and  this  explains  also  one  of 
the  elements  of  attraction  which  many,  trained  under  the 
more  rigid  Protestant  services,  find  in  forms  of  service 
which  have  retained  more  of  the  element  of  worship,  or 
even  for  the  forms  of  the  Catholic  church  itself. 

The  result  of  the  Reformation  in  the  direction  of  intel- 
lectual freedom  is  now  evident.  It  planted  itself  squarely 
on  the  principles  enunciated  by  the  Revival  of  Learning,' 

'  The  protest  of  the  German  princes  and  cities  against  the  action  of 
the  Diet,  in  1529,  from  which  the  name  Protestant  comes  grounds  itself 
on  the  principle  that  the  majority  has  no  right  to  bind  the  conscience 
of  the  minority. 

It  is  at  this  point,  also,  that  the  greatest  barrier  still  exists  between 
the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  forms  of  Christianity.  It  may  be  as  dif- 
ficult now  for  the  Catholic  church  to  modify  its  official  theology  as  it 
was  in  the  days  of  Luther,  bnt  to  the  most  intelligent  Protestants  of  to- 
day, undoubtedly,  the  theological  difference  seems  a  less  vital  difference 
than  to  the  early  reformers.  But  no  intelligent  Protestant  can  ever  sur- 
render his  right  to  hold  that  theological  opinion  which  seems  to  him,  in- 
dividually, the  most  reasonable.     It  is  equally  impossible  for  the  Cath- 


THE   REFOKMATION  441 

but  those  who  led  the  movement  did  not  do  so  from 
choice,  and  their  support  of  liberty  of  thought  was  never 
more  than  half-hearted.  But  they  could  not  control  the 
consequences  of  their  action.  The  general  result  was  an 
atmosphere  of  intellectual  independence  and  inquiry  in 
all  Protestant  countries,  seen  in  the  rapid  multiplication 
of  rehgious  sects,  which  could  not  be  checked,  and  in  the 
history  of  philosophy,  science,  and  the  book-trade.  The 
intellectual  history  of  the  world  since  the  Reformation  is 
the  history  of  the  growing  prevalence  of  this  spirit  in 
Protestant  countries  and  of  its  introduction  into  Roman 
Catholic  countries  as  the  result  of  the  sceptical  philoso- 
phy of  the  eighteenth  century  and  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. 

There  should  be  added  to  complete  the  statement  of 
the  influence  of  the  Reformation  the  more  detailed 
results  which  are  often  referred  to  but  cannot  be  here 
treated  at  length.  Such  are  its  influence  on  the  study  of 
the  Bible  by  people  of  all  classes,  a  result  especially 
marked  in  Anglo-Saxon  countries,  and  not  without  its 
influence  on  Roman  Catholic  policy ;  its  influence  on 
public  schools  of  the  lower  grades  ;  on  the  fixing  of  the 

olic  church  to  surrender  its  fnndamental  position  that  a  correct  theolog- 
ical belief  is  a  necessity  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  that  the  church  is 
able,  under  especial  divine  guidance,  to  determine  which  of  two  vary- 
ing theological  opinions  is  the  only  correct  one,  and  has  the  right  to  re- 
quire all  men  to  believe  this  alone  if  they  would  be  counted  Christians. 
Authorities  of  the  Roman  Catliolic  church  may  say  much,  as  tliey  have 
recently,  upon  their  sympathy  with  free  thought,  but  their  definition 
of  free  thought  must  always  remain  different  from  that  which  prevails 
in  the  Protestant  world.  The  qualification  is  always  expressed  or  im- 
plied that  freedom  is  not  license,  and  that  true  freedom  consists  in  sub 
mission  to  legitimate  authority— terms  again,  which  must  be  interpreted 
from  the  Roman  Catholic  point  of  view.  The  Catholic  church  can 
never  abandon  its  claim  to  determine  what  particular  thought  it  is  which 
shall  be  free,  without  abandoning  the  one  most  essential  thing  which 
distinguishes  it  from  the  Protestant. 


442  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATIOX 

literary  forms  of  national  languages ;  and  on  tlie  use  of 
the  printing-press  to  influence  public  opinion. 

The  Keformation,  as  was  implied  at  the  beginning  of 
the  chapter,  completes  the  history  of  the  middle  ages. 
The  church  was  the  institution  which  had  tarried  farthest 
behind  in  the  progress  of  the  later  centimes,  and  the 
Reformation  was  the  revolution  by  which,  for  a  large 
part  of  the  chui'ch,  the  medieval  was  transformed  into  the 
modem.  In  matters  directly  religious,  to  escape  from 
the  medieval  was  the  object  most  earnestly  sought  by  the 
reformers.  In  other  respects  the  transformation  took 
place  against  their  will  and  without  their  knowledge,  but 
it  took  place.  For  a  portion  of  the  church,  however,  this 
was  not  the  case.  That  part  of  it  which  remained  faith- 
ful to  Rome  did,  indeed,  in  some  points  share  the  change, 
notably  in  the  matter  of  moral  and  ecclesiastical  abuses, 
but  in  its  chief  theories  and  its  distinguishing  doctrines 
the  Roman  church  remained  medieval.  Its  theory  of 
continued  inspiration  and  continued  miracles;  its  belief 
in  the  infallibility  of  the  church  or  of  the  pope,  as  built 
upon  that  theory ;  its  doctrines  of  transubstantiation  and 
of  supererogatory  merit,  are  all  medieval,  based  upon 
mental  conceptions  and  habits  of  thought  which  are  for- 
eign to  the  mind  of  to-day. 

In  general,  also,  the  Reformation  must  not  be  judged, 
as  seems  now  and  then  to  be  the  tendency,  to  be  some- 
thing final.  It  was  but  one  phase  in  a  constant  process, 
gaining  a  peculiar  importance  because  of  its  \'iolent  and 
revolutionary  character  due  to  the  fact  that  the  process 
had  not  been  permitted  to  go  on  naturally.  If  it  is  allow- 
able to  judge  our  own  age,  its  great  work,  religiously  and 
intellectually,  has  been  to  carry  a  long  step  farther  the 
principles  which  the  Reformation  incompletely  realized. 


CHAPTEK  XVIII. 


SUMMARY 


We  have  now  followed  the  course  of  European  civili- 
zation from  the  time  when  the  various  streams  which 
united  to  form  it  were  drawing  together  at  the  close  of 
ancient  history,  until  all  its  various  elements  were  com- 
pletely united  and  had  begun  the  more  rapid  advance 
which  we  term  modern  history.  It  is  clearly  a  period  of 
preparation,  not  in  the  sense,  however,  in  which  every 
age  in  history  is  a  preparation  for  the  followmg  age.  It 
was  not  so  much,  as  now,  a  preparation  in  institutions, 
discoveries,  and  ideas,  though  there  was  something  of 
this.  It  was  rather  a  preparation  of  men.  It  is  a  pe- 
riod of  history  in  which  the  races  that  have  created  mod- 
ern civilization  were  brought  together  and  united  in  the 
organic  system  which  we  call  Christendom,  in  which  the 
ideas  and  institutions  which  each  contributed  were  also 
united  into  a  common  whole,  and  in  which  men  were 
prepared  to  add  to  the  results  of  distinctly  medieval 
times,  not  slight  in  some  directions,  the  higher  products 
of  ancient  civilization  which  they  had  been  unable  to 
comprehend  until  near  the  close  of  the  period.  With 
this  preparation  completed,  and  this  final  union  made, 
the  modern  spirit  entered  into  history,  and  made  itself 
master,  in  succession,  of  the  various  departments  of  civ- 
ilization. 

The  two  fundamental  facts  in  this  process  of  union  are 


444  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

the  Koman  empire  and  the  Christian  church.  The  first 
in  the  order  of  time  was  the  Roman  empire.  It  united 
the  ancient  world  in  a  common  whole,  which  was  in  all 
essential  respects  as  organic  a  union  as  modern  Chris- 
tendom. The  two  great  classic  civilizations — the  Greek, 
of  art  and-  literature  and  science  and  philosophy  ;  the 
Roman,  of  law  and  government  and  practical  skill— were 
blended  into  a  world  civilization  in  which  the  best  ele- 
ments of  various  tribal  civilizations  became  the  property 
of  all  men.  This  common  whole  which  Rome  created 
was  never  afterward  destroyed.  The  keen  sense  of  it, 
the  cosmopolitan  feeling  which  was  characteristic  of  the 
best  days  of  the  empire,  declined.  Europe  threatened 
at  times  to  break  into  fragments,  but  such  a  result  never 
happened.  The  old  force  which  had  at  first  maintained 
the  union — the  idea  of  Rome — grew  weaker  and  disap- 
peared, but  not  until  a  new  one — the  church — had  arisen 
to  take  its  place.  Christendom  is  the  creation  of  this 
new  force  upon  the  foundation  which  the  Roman  empire 
had  laid. 

Into  this  empire,  in  its  earliest  age,  before  it  had  de- 
tected the  decay  which  had  already  begun,  entered 
Christianity,  spreading  slowly  at  first,  then  more  rapidly 
and  among  higher  classes.  Before  its  third  century  was 
completed  it  had  become  the  recognized  religion  of  the 
imperial  court.  In  the  age  of  its  more  rapid  expansion 
it  absorbed  not  only  the  pagan  society  but  also  pagan 
ideas,  and  became  less  spiritual  and  more  formal.  Cere- 
monies and  doctrinal  beliefs  multiplied.  The  simple  or- 
ganization of  primitive  days  gave  place  to  a  complicated 
but  strong  hierarchy,  over  which  the  Bishop  of  Rome 
had  already  begun  to  assert  his  headship  and  to  secure, 
in  a  part  of  the  chui'ch,  its  recognition.  This  strong 
organization  arose,  creating  a  real  unity  throughout  the 
provinces  of  the  West,  at  the  moment  when  they  were 


SUMMARY  445 

falling  apart  politically.  When  they  had  become  wholly 
independent  kingdoms  it  remained  a  living  bond  of  union 
between  them. 

Before  this  point  was  reached  the  fatal  weakness  of 
the  Roman  empire  had  become  evident.  The  occupa- 
tion of  the  world  by  the  Romans  had  exhausted  their 
strength.  There  had  been  no  opportunity  under  the 
empire  to  root  out  the  moral  and  economic  evils  which 
had  begun  their  existence  in  the  last  days  of  the  repub- 
lic, nor  to  recover  the  losses  which  they  continually  in- 
flicted. Beyond  the  frontier,  in  every  generation,  a 
watchful  enemy  made  trial  of  the  Roman  strength,  and 
at  last  found  it  insufficient.  In  the  fifth  century  every 
province  of  the  West  was  taken  possession  of  by  the 
Germans,  and  the  foui-th  great  source  of  the  elements 
which  were  to  be  combined  in  medieval  times  was 
brought  into  connection  '^dth  the  other  three.  Teutonic 
kingdoms  were  founded,  Ostrogothic  in  Italy,  Visigothic 
in  Spain,  Vandal  in  Africa,  Burgundian  in  the  Rhone 
valley,  Saxon  in  England,  Frankish  in  Gaul,  and  finally, 
Lombard  in  North  Italy,  but  in  the  end  they  were  all 
overthrown  except  the  Frankish  and  the  Saxon.  They 
were  the  two  tribes  destined  to  be  the  especially  ac- 
tive agents  in  the  transmission  of  institutions  and  law 
through  the  middle  ages. 

The  apparent  result  of  the  Teutonic  settlement  was 
ruinous  to  civilization.  Disorder,  ignorance,  and  super- 
stition, which  were  already  beginning,  were  intensified 
by  the  conquest.  But  the  ruin  was  more  in  appearance 
than  in  reality.  Even  before  the  invasion  most  of  the 
German  tribes  were  prepared  to  respect  many  things 
which  they  found  among  the  Romans,  and  almost  imme- 
diately the  two  influences  which  were  the  chief  agents  in 
their  absorption,  the  Christian  church  and  the  idea  of 
Rome,  began  to  work  upon  them.     The  process  of  union 


446  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

and  recovery  was  slow,  necessarily  slow,  because  of  the 
weakness  of  the  recuperative  influences,  and  of  the  rough- 
ness of  the  material  upon  which  they  acted.  For  three 
centuries  history  is  filled  with  the  shifting  of  peoples 
and  the  rise  and  fall  of  states,  with,  no  apparent  gain 
of  stability  or  security,  the  fii-st  requisites  of  progress. 
The  first  great  advance  which  gave  promise  of  better 
things  was  the  empire  of  Charlemagne  at  the  beginning 
of  the  ninth  century. 

The  first  Carolingians  had  restored  the  strength  of  the 
Prankish  state,  and  recovered  the  lands  conquered  by 
the  early  Mero\dngians.  On  this  foundation  Charle- 
magne erected  an  empire  rivalling  in  extent  the  Western 
Eoman  Empire.  But  his  revival  of  the  title  Emperor  of 
Rome  was  not  justified  alone  by  the  extent  of  the  terri- 
tory over  which  he  ruled.  All  things  for  which  the 
name  of  Rome  stood,  in  the  minds  of  those  who  still  re- 
membered it,  were  represented  in  that  day  by  the  Frank- 
ish  empire.  Order  and  security,  general  legislation,  a 
common  government  for  many  different  peoj)les,  the  fos- 
tering of  schools  and  religion,  a  promise  of  permanence 
for  the  future,  all  these  were  connected  with  the  name  of 
Charlemagne,  and  we  may  add  the  fact — of  which  they 
were  less  conscious — the  speedy  union  into  a  single 
people  of  the  two  races,  the  conquerors  and  the  con- 
quered. His  emjDire  was  not  permanent.  The  causes 
of  disorder  were  still  too  strong  to  be  overcome,  and 
the  effort  to  establish  governments  of  the  old  Roman 
or  of  the  modern  type  was  premature.  But  Charle- 
magne's attempt  was  a  strong  reinforcement  of  the  bet- 
ter forces.  It  created  for  a  moment  security  and  a  real 
union.  It  revived  the  influence  of  Rome.  As  men 
looked  back  upon  it  from  a  later  time,  it  became  a 
new  golden  age.  From  the  time  of  Charlemagne  prog- 
ress was  still  slow,  but  Europe  assumed  a  more  settled 


SUMMARY  447 

character  and  never  quite  fell  back  into  the  earlier  con- 
fusion. 

The  most  prominent  general  feature  of  political  civili- 
zation characteristic  of  modern  times  as  compared  with 
ancient,  is  the  existence  of  independent  nations,  constitut- 
ing a  virtual  federation  in  the  place  of  one  great  empire. 
The  creation  of  these  nations  was  the  work  of  the  last 
half  of  the  middle  ages,  but  in  the  breaking  up  of  Charle- 
magne's empire  they  made  their  first  appearance.  In 
other  words,  the  failure  of  the  attempt  to  secure  settled 
political  order  by  a  revival  of  the  one  great  empire  plan, 
was  accompanied  with  an  attempt  to  secure  it  by  the 
modern  system  of  national  governments.  The  West 
Franks  and  the  Eastern  German  tribes  fell  apart,  and  set 
up  governments  of  their  own,  distinguished  both  from 
each  other  and  from  the  Carolingian.  England  emerged 
from  the  age  of  tribal  kingdoms,  and  began  a  national 
life  under  the  lead  of  the  West  Saxons.  But  these  prom- 
ises of  national  organizations  really  able  to  govern  were 
not  immediately  fulfilled.  There  were  as  yet,  even  within 
these  narrower  geographical  limits,  too  few  of  the  ele- 
ments of  a  common  life  from  which  states  draw  their  sup- 
port to  render  these  attempts  successful.  In  England 
the  Danish  invasions  threw  the  nation  back  into  some- 
thing like  the  conditions  of  the  first  age  of  conquest.  In 
Germany  the  national  government  was  the  most  promis- 
ing of  any  until  the  Norman  dynasty  gained  possession 
of  England,  but  even  in  Germany  it  was  weakened  by 
strong  tribal  differences,  which  were  not  entirely  over- 
come when  it  entered  upon  the  long  conflict  with  the 
papacy,  entailed  upon  it  by  the  Holy  Roman  Empire. 
In  France  the  feudal  system  had  its  origin,  and  it  had 
usurped  the  powers  of  the  general  government,  even  be- 
fore the  fall  of  the  Carolingian  family.  The  feudal  king 
whom  it  set  on  the  throne  in  the  place  of  the  old  dynasty 


448  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

had  only  a  name  to  reign,  and  the  same  result  happened 
wherever  in  Europe  the  feudal  system  became  power- 
ful. Yet  for  France  and  for  all  Europe  the.  feudal  sys- 
tem was  of  the  greatest  service  in  an  age  when  anarchy 
could  not  be  entirely  repressed,  because  it  carefully  pre- 
served the  form  and  theory  of  a  general  government, 
while  it  allowed  local  independence  the  freest  hand. 

The  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  were  the  age  of  ex- 
treme disintegration,  when  the  local  and  the  narrow  pre- 
vailed universally.  The  papacy  shared  in  the  decline  of 
all  general  power.  Even  the  revival  of  the  Roman  em- 
pire by  the  Saxon  kings  of  Germany,  which  looks  like  a 
return  to  unity  and  to  broader  ideas,  was  the  revival  of 
a  title  and  a  theory,  hardly  of  a  reality.  But  the  idea  of 
the  universab  supremacy  of  the  pope  was  already  too 
thoroughly  worked  out  to  remain  long  in  abeyance. 
The  reform  led  by  the  monastery  of  Cluny  revived  the 
old  theories  with  greater  precision  and  a  clearer  con- 
sciousness. It  created  also  Hildebrand,  the  practical 
statesman,  who  attempted  to  carry  out  the  theories  by 
raising  the  papacy  above  all  states.  Meanwhile  the 
strength  of  the  emperor  had  greatly  increased  under  the 
Franconiau  family,  and  immediately  the  two  great  theo- 
retical institutions  which  the  medieval  mind  had  con- 
structed upon  the  Roman  foundation  came  into  conflict. 
It  was  a  conflict  between  medieval  ideas,  fought  with 
medieval  weapons,  and  it  ceased  only  when  the  medieval 
in  every  direction  was  beginning  to  give  place  to  the 
modern.  Its  net  result  for  the  history  of  civilization 
was  that  it  prevented  the  realization  in  facts  of  either 
theory — the  world  political  empire  or  the  world  ecclesi- 
astical empire. 

At  the  moment  when  this  strife  was  at  its  height  the 
turning-]iomt  of  the  middle  ages  was  reached.  Europe 
was   roused  from    its  lotha-gy  by  a  high  purpose,  and 


SUMMARY  449 

stimulated  in  the  crusades  to  an  activity  which  never 
afterward  declined.  Already  here  and  there  new  influ- 
ences had  begun  to  work,  in  commerce  and  in  a  desire 
for  learning  especially.  Now  all  classes  were  stirred  by 
the  general  enthusiasm.  The  new  impulse  received  be- 
gan to  show  itself  in  every  direction.  The  course  of  civ- 
ilization turned  away  from  the  dark  ages  toward  modem 
times. 

Commerce  was  the  first  to  feel  the  new  forces,  be- 
cause the  most  directly  touched  by  the  crusades.  Ships 
were  multiplied ;  new  articles  of  commerce  brought  into 
use ;  new  routes  opened ;  geographical  knowledge  in- 
creased ;  villages  were  transformed  into  cities ;  money 
came  into  more  general  use ;  wealth  was  accumulated, 
and  with  wealth  power  and  influence  in  a  new  class,  the 
Third  Estate.  In  lands  the  most  favored,  serfdom  dis- 
appeared, and  the  agricultural  laborer  shared  to  some 
extent  in  the  general  improvement.  These  results  of  in- 
creasing commerce  acted  directly  upon  the  j)olitical  de- 
velopment of  Europe.  The  commercial  classes  de- 
manded security  and  order.  They  stood  ready  to  aid 
the  state  in  repressing  feudal  violence.  They  demanded 
a  imiform  law,  which  they  found  in  the  Justinian  code, 
and  by  their  use  of  it,  and  by  their  influence  in  the  gov- 
ernments which  were  forming,  they  secui'ed  its  preva- 
lence over  the  native  law,  thus  strongly  reinforcing  the 
tendency  to  centralization  naturally  involved  in  the  fall 
of  feudalism.  Finally  the  Third  Estate  made  its  way 
into  the  government,  as  a  class  beside  the  other  classes, 
and  obtained  an  influence  upon  public  aflau's  in  the  Diets 
and  Estates  General  of  the  thii-teenth  century — an  influ- 
ence which  it  never  discovered  how  to  use. 

Politically  the  nations  appeared  immediately  upon 
the  crusades.  Germany  and  Ital}'  were  defrauded  of  the 
unity  which  their  national  life  would  have  justified  and 
29 


450  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

broken  into  contending  fractions  by  the  visionary  Roman 
empire,  which  the  Ottos  had  revived.  In  Spain  the 
slow  recovery  of  the  peninsula  from  the  Mohammedans 
made  the  united  monarchy  possible  only  at  the  end  of 
the  fifteenth  centmy.  But  France  and  England  reached 
contrasting  results  of  the  greatest  interest.  In  France 
the  predominant  fact  at  the  outset  was  the  feudal  system. 
The  construction  of  a  political  unity  answering  to  a 
national  life  was  a  process  of  breaking  down  feudal  bar- 
riers and  absorbing  feudal  principalities.  In  this  pro- 
cess the  only  institution  which  represented  a  unity  above 
the  feudal  divisions,  the  monarchy,  naturally  took  the 
lead.  Every  element  of  power  lost  by  feudalism  was 
added  to  the  king's  authority.  As  soon  as  the  geographi- 
cal construction  was  fairly  under  way  the  institutional 
began.  National  administrative,  legislative,  and  judi- 
cial systems  were  got  into  operation.  A  national  taxa- 
tion and  a  national  army  were  formed.  As  a  result  of 
the  line  of  development  which  it  had  been  obliged  to  fol- 
low, the  French  nation  came  into  existence  with  a  closely 
centralized  political  life,  directed  by  an  absolute  king. 
In  England  the  predominant  fact  at  the  beginning  was 
the  imcontrolled  power  of  the  sovereign.  The  English 
barons  were  not  feudal  princes.  They  were  so  situated 
that  they  could  not  hope  to  become  princes.  In  striving 
to  increase  their  own  power  at  the  exj)ense  of  the  king 
they  had  recourse  to  the  only  things  of  which  they  could 
know  anything— older  institutions,  Saxon,  Noiman,  or 
feudal — which  limited  the  king's  action  or  offered  pro- 
tection against  his  anger.  Their  necessary  alliance  with 
the  other  classes  in  the  nation  gave  still  more  of  a  popu- 
lar character  to  the  government  and  made  it  possible  for 
the  lower  house  of  Parliament  to  be  formed  upon  a  really 
representative  principle  and  to  obtain  increasing  power 
in  public  affairs.     The  political  life  of  the  English  nation 


SUMMARY  451 

expressed  itself  in  a  limited  monarcliy,  with  definitely 
formed  institutions  of  public  and  private  liberty.  Politi- 
cally modern  history  opens  with  the  rise  of  conflicting 
interests  between  the  newly  formed  states — with  the  be- 
ginning of  diplomacy  and  of  international  politics. 

Intellectually  the  mind  of  Europe  was  wakened  to  an 
intense  desire  for  learning  before  it  knew  where  to  find 
the  materials  of  knowledge.  The  result  was  the  forma- 
tion of  a  great  system  of  speculative  learning,  scholasti- 
cism, which  seemed  to  its  adherents  so  vitally  important 
that  it  became  a  serious  obstacle  to  the  advance  of  real 
learning.  With  the  fourteenth  century  the  true  way 
was  found.  Led  perhaps  by  the  reawakening  of  a  gen- 
uine literary  feeling,  by  an  admiration  for  the  writings 
of  the  ancients  and  a  sense  of  the  unity  of  the  past  with 
the  present,  the  first  humanists  sought  eagerly  for  all 
the  remains  of  classic  civilization.  Greek,  wliich  the 
middle  ages  had  never  known,  was  recovered,  as  well 
as  a  better  knowledge  of  Latin.  The  spirit  of  criticism 
was  quickly  awakened.  True  scientific  work  was  begun. 
Careful  editions  of  literary  and  historical  works  were  pre- 
pared. A  more  accurate  knowledge  of  the  past  was 
gained.  Old  beliefs  were  brought  to  the  test  of  facts, 
and  time-honored  myths  destroyed  on  all  sides.  The 
right  of  investigation  and  of  individual  judgment  was 
established.  In  physical  science  Copernicus  was  pro- 
vided with  the  material  and  the  method  which  led  to  the 
first  great  advance  in  the  imderstanding  of  nature.  The 
invention  of  printing  popularized  the  new  learning  and 
gave  it  better  weapons.  The  discovery  of  America,  and 
all  the  work  of  the  century  together,  broadened  and 
liberalized  men's  minds,  and  opened  a  future  full  of  prom- 
ise. With  this  the  middle  ages  closed  and  modern  his- 
tory began. 

In   the   ecclesiastical  world   less   progress   had   been 


452  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

made  by  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  because 
the  resisting  power  had  been  greater.  The  nations  as 
they  arose  had  successfully  opposed  the  political  interfer- 
ence of  the  papacy  in  their  domestic  affairs.  England, 
France,  and  Germany  in  succession  had  proclaimed  their 
independence.  But  the  attempt,  at  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance, to  reconstruct  the  government  of  the  church  upon 
the  model  of  the  ideas  and  institutions  which  had  grown 
up  in  the  political  progress  of  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries  had  failed  completely.  The  same  result 
had  followed  the  several  attempts  to  introduce  religious 
or  ecclesiastical  reform,  either  local  or  general,  which 
had  been  made  before  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  At  that  date  the  modern  spirit  had,  in  the 
main,  possession  of  all  the  world  except  the  ecclesiastical 
portion  of  it.  But  if  the  modern  spirit  had  been  kept 
under  in  these  matters  it  had  not  been  destroyed,  and 
when  it  found  its  leader  in  Luther  the  suddenness  of  the 
revolution  showed  how  thorough  had  been  the  prepara- 
tion for  it.  The  Reformation  sought  as  its  conscious  ob- 
ject a  return  to  a  truer  Christianity  in  practice  and  be- 
lief, but  it  accomplished  more  than  this.  It  created  a' 
general  atmosphere  of  intellectual  independence  and 
freedom  which,  if  not  always  perfectly  realized,  has 
been,  nevertheless,  one  of  the  most  essential  conditions 
of  modem  progi'ess. 

"With  the  Reformation  the  history  of  the  middle  ages 
was  closed  for  every  department  of  civilization.  This  is 
the  same  as  to  say  that  for  every  department  of  civil- 
ization the  work  of  waiting,  of  preparation,  was  now 
over,  and  that  an  age  of  more  rapid  progress,  basing 
itself  upon  the  results  of  the  world's  first  age  of  similar 
progress,  now  succeeded  an  age  of  relatively  slow  ad- 
vance. The  age  which  lay  between  had  had  its  neces- 
sary work  to  do.     To  the  results  of  ancient  civilization,  it 


SUMMARY  463 

had  added  new  ideas  and  institutions  from  other  sources, 
and,  even  more  important,  it  had  brought  in  a  new  race 
and  trained  it  to  understand  and  to  build  upon  the  best 
productions  of  the  ancient  world.  The  reason  why  the 
advance  of  the  last  four  centuries  has  been  so  marvel- 
lous, comparatively  speaking,  is  because  the  middle  ages 
moulded  into  a  perfect  unity,  a  living  and  organic  world 
civilization,  the  best  contributions  of  Greek  and  Roman, 
Christian  and  German. 

In  sum  total  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century 
shoAvs  these  advances  to  have  been  made  over  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fifth.  A  new  race  is  on  the  field  as  the  creat- 
ive agent  in  history — the  Teutonic — organized  now  in  a 
number  of  independent  nations,  and  not  in  one  great 
empire,  but  forming  an  equally  or  even  more  close  unity 
in  civilization  than  the  old  empire,  in  which  the  work  of 
each  nation  is  immediately  the  common  property  of  all. 
This  unity  was  now  so  thoroughly  established,  so  much  a 
part  of  the  world's  daily  habit  of  thought  and  action,  that 
the  idea  of  the  Roman  empire,  upon  which  it  had  been 
originally  based,  had  entirely  disappeared,  and  if  any  idea 
of  the  special  source  of  this  unity  had  taken  its  place,  it 
was  that  of  the  Christian  faith  as  its  common  character- 
istic and  foundation — Christendom.  The  nations  organ- 
ized withint  this  unity  were  no  longer  city  states,  but  in 
them  all  parts  of  the  land  were  equally  organic  factors 
in  the  composition  of  the  nation.  Their  governments 
presented,  with  local  variations,  two  general  types,  one 
of  which,  at  least,  was  a  decided  advance  upon  any  of 
the  ancient  world.  One  was  a  closely  centralized  mon- 
archy, in  which  the  functions  of  government,  recovered 
from  the  smaller  powers — the  feudal  lords — which  had 
usurped  them  in  a  time  of  political  confusion,  were 
vested  in  an  uncontrolled  sovereign.       The   other  was 


464  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

also  in  form  a  monarchy,  but  it  was  a  monarchy  which 
allowed  full  local  self-government  in  the  subdivisions 
of  the  state  without  loss  of  efficiency,  that  is,  it  was  a 
strong  national  government,  without  close  centralization. 
The  functions  of  the  general  government,  exercised  at 
first  by  the  king,  were  passing  more  and  more  under  the 
control  of  the  people  by  means  of  a  series  of  institutional 
checks  upon  the  royal  power  which  were  not  known  to 
the  ancient  world.  This  control  was  exercised  by  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people,  under  a  true  representative  sys- 
tem, which  was  the  most  valuable  contribution  which 
this  race  had  yet  made  to  practical  politics.  The  liberty 
of  the  individual  was  protected  by  institutions  which 
were  also  new.  In  other  words,  this  type  of  government 
was  that  of  a  free  state  well  under  way,  its  institutions 
of  liberty  abeady  so  definitely  shaped  as  to  be  capable 
of  transmission  through  long  ages,  and  of  adaptation  to 
other  races  and  other  environments. 

In  economic  civilization,  as  compared  with  the  fifth 
century  the  commerce  of  the  sixteenth  was  no  longer 
confined  to  the  Mediterranean,  but  the  whole  world  was 
open  to  it,  and  an  age  of  great  colonies  was  about  to 
begin.  The  slavery  of  Europeans  had  disappeared  from 
the  Christian  states,  and  serfdom,  which  in  the  fifth 
century  was  just  beginning  to  take  the  place  of  slavery, 
had  also  been  left  behind  by  a  few  of  the  more  advanced 
nations.  Labor  had  become  more  honorable  than  in 
ancient  times.  The  class  of  free  laborers  had  arisen, 
with  but  little  influence  as  yet,  but  revealing  clearly  the 
possession  of  that  power  in  its  infancy  which  they  were 
to  exercise  in  the  future. 

Intellectually,  the  world  had  come  into  possession,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  of  the  printing- 
press  and  a  greatly  extended  geographical  knowledge. 
These   in  themselves   constituted   a  revolution,  but  in 


SUMMARY  455 

hardly  any  other  particular  was  there  an  advance  over  the 
fifth  century,  though  the  attitude  of  mind  toward  life  and 
all  intellectual  problems  wiis  a  great  advance  upon  the 
medieval.  The  active  mind  of  the  middle  ages  had  been 
employed  in  the  construction  of  great  philosophical  and 
theological  systems,  valuable  for  their  own  purposes  but 
adding  little  to  real  knowledge.  The  great  effort  of  the 
last  age,  now  just  successful,  had  been  to  learn  what  the 
ancients  had  known,  to  regain  a  more  just  estimate  of 
man  and  of  his  powers,  and  to  restore  more  productive 
methods  of  scientific  work.  The  first  great  discovery  in 
the  field  of  physical  science  was  just  on  the  eve  of  an- 
nouncement. 

In  art  much  which  the  fifth  century  possessed  had 
been  lost  never  to  be  recovered,  but  much  also  had  been 
added  to  the  world's  store— the  Divine  Comedy  and 
Chaucer,  the  cathedrals  of  Europe  and  the  earlier  works 
of  Renaissance  art. 

Religiously,  the  opening  of  the  sixteenth  century  pre- 
sented, in  external  appearance  at  least,  no  advance  upon 
the  fifth.  Those  modifications  of  the  primitive  and  spir- 
itual Christianity  which  had  been  introduced  at  the 
earlier  date,  because  of  the  difficulty  of  holding  true  to 
the  higher  life  in  a  declining  age,  which  had  perhaps 
enabled  the  Christian  organization  to  meet  the  perils  of 
the  age  of  conquest  with  greater  safety,  and  to  become  a 
more  effective  teacher  of  barbarous  races,  through  which, 
however,  the  gifted  soul  had  ahvays  been  able  to  see  the 
light— these  modifications  or  corruptions  still  remained 
as  the  popular  Christianity,  hardened  into  a  vast,  and  in- 
deed splendid,  system  of  ceremonies  and  doctrinal  beliefs. 
In  place  of  the  formative  constitution  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury now  appeared  a  most  highly  organized  absolutism, 
a  great  empire,  with  perfected  machinery  of  government 
and  a  growing  system  of  law.      But  if  at  the  opening  of 


466  MEDIEVAL   CIVILIZATION 

tlie  sixteenth  century  the  church  was  still  in  appearance 
medieval,  it  was  just  on  the  verge  of  the  revolution  which 
was  to  make  it  more  modern,  and  to  mark  the  first  long 
step  in  advance  toward  a  truer  understanding  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  catalogue  is  not  long  of  those  things  in  which  the 
first  years  of  the  sixteenth  centui-y  surpassed  those  of  the 
fifth.  The  great  change  was  in  the  new  race,  the  new 
sjDirit,  Avhich  now  entered  into  the  possession  of  the  re- 
sidts  of  the  past.  New  impulses  were  felt  by  every  man, 
and  the  promise  of  a  wider  future.  New  forces  were 
opening  the  way  in  every  direction.  Humanity  was  en- 
tering upon  another  great  era  of  the  rapid  conquest  of 
nature  and  of  truth. 


INDEX 


Abelard,  273. 

Alabic,  68  f.,  125. 

Albigenses,  the,  273,  417  f. 

Alcuin,  163,  367. 

Alexius  Comnenus,  262. 

America,  discovery  of,  290,  363, 388  ff. 
See  United  States. 

Andokre,  republic  of,  292,  note. 

Anglo-Saxon  race,  the  institution- 
making  power,  21  ;  37,  note,  102, 
note  ;  their  laws,  '62,  35 ;  their  in- 
vasion of  England,  71  f.  ;  elective 
monarchy,  99  ;  their  future  political 
influence,  102,  137,  192,  7iote ;  their 
law  of  treason,  356. 

Arabs,  the,  their  attack  on  Gaul,  151, 
207 ;  their  conquests,  1.50,  260 ;  their 
work  for  civilization,  260,  367. 

Arianism,  142. 

Aristotle,  19,  368,  7iote,  377. 

Army,  standing,  beginning  of  the 
modern,  327. 

Arnulf.  King  of  Germany,  177. 

Asceticism.     See  MbnasticUm. 

Athenians,  inferior  to  Romans    in 

political  skill,  27. 
Attila,  71. 
Augustine,  Saint,  36,  53,  note,   56, 

note,  119,  228,  366,  429. 
Avignon,  the  papacy  at,  897  ff. 

"Babylonian  captivity,"  the,  399. 

Bacon,  Lord,  on  scholasticism,  368, 
note. 

Bacon,  Roger,  273,  369  f.,  389. 
"■  BailU,'"  the,  321  f.,  324. 
Basel,  council  of,  408  f. 
Beaudouin,    E.,    on  feudalism,    203, 
note,  211. 

Belisarius,  7.5. 
Benedict  XTII.,  105,  407. 


Benedict,  Saint,  the  "rule "of,  134, 
note. 

Benefice,  the,  197,  199,  note,  208. 

Bible,  critical  study  of,  382,  note  ; 
in  the  early  reformation  movements, 
421 ;  influence  of  the  Reformation 
on  the  study  of,  441.  See  A\iu 
Testament. 

Blackstone's  commentaries,  217. 
Boniface  VIII.,  330,  note,  393  fl'.,  414. 
Boniface,  Saint,  151,  231. 
Bourgeoisie,  Villes  de,  293,  296. 
Bourges,  synod  of,  409. 
Bouvines,  battle  of,  318. 
Brunner,  H.  ,   on  circuit  justices  of 

England,  162,    note ;   on  the  feudal 

system,  207,  note. 

BtJRGUNDiANS,  the,  69,  70,  143. 

Capetian  dynasty,  beginning  of,  183 
ff.  ;  efforts  of,  to  form  modern 
France,  312  ff. 

Carolingian  family,  the,  its  rise,  148 
ff.  ;  decline  of,  172,  176;  end  of,  in 
Germany,  179;  in  France,  184. 

Celibacy  of  the  clergy,  the,  242. 

Cellini,  388. 

Charlemagne,  154  ff.,  446 ;  his  states- 
manship, 1.55;  conquests,  156;  in- 
stitutional creations,  159  ff.  ;  legis- 
lation, 163;  schools,  163  f.,  367; 
becomes  Emperor  of  Rome,  164 ;  re- 
sults of  his  reign,  106  (T.  ;  f.dl  of  liis 
empire,  171 ;  causes  of  its  fall,  172 
ff.  ;  his  influence  on  feudalism,  2*^9; 
his  relation  to  the  church,  232  f. 

Charles  IV.,  Emperor,  359. 

Charles  V.,  Emperor,  424  f. 

Charles  V.,  Prance,  334. 

Charles  VII.,  France,  335. 

Charles  VIII.,  France,  336. 

Charles,  the  Fat,  171,  183. 


458 


INDEX 


Charles  Martel,  150  ff.,  207,  208. 

Chivalry,  origin  of,  276 ;  influence 
of,  377 ;  ethics  of,  277. 

Christianity,  spread  of,  aided  by  the 
Roman  unity,  30;  influence  of,  on 
Roman  law,  32 ;  hindrances  to 
spread  of,  40  ff.  ;  aids  to  spread  of, 
43  ff.  ;  attitude  of  Roman  govern- 
ment toward,  47  ff.  ;  attitude  of,  to- 
ward the  state,  47,  7iote,  62  ;  contri- 
butions of,  to  civilization,  51  ff. ;  and 
church  government,  51, 109,  ff.  ;  and 
theology,  51,  111 ;  religious  contri- 
butions, 53  ff. ;  ethical  contributions, 
56  ff.  ;  influence  of,  on  relation  of 
individual  to  the  state,  01 ;  on  idea 
of  equality,  61  ;  on  abolition  of 
slavery,  62,  note ;  on  advancement 
of  woman,  62,  note  ;  on  separation 
of  church  and  state,  63 ;  introduced 
new  energy,  64  ;  in  the  Renaissance 
age,  387. 

Church,  the,  Christianity  and,  51, 
110  ;  separation  of  state  and,  62 ; 
influence  on  the  Germans,  105  ;  for- 
ination  of  Roman  Catholic,  108  ff.  ; 
aids  in  formation  of  the  modern 
nations.  179, 186;  attempts  to  recon- 
struct the  constitution  of,  410 ;  con- 
dition of,  at  beginning  of  sixteenth 
century,  416  ff. 

Cities,  free,  rise  of,  in  Italy,  250  f., 
301  ;  tlieir  struggle  with  the  Em- 
perors, 251  ff.,  301  ;  rise  of,  after 
the  crusades,  290  f.  ;  influence  of 
Roman  institutions  on,  291,  note  ; 
aided  by  feudal  forms,  291 ;  in 
France,  292  ff.  ;  in  Germany,  302. 

Civilization,  medieval,  general  char- 
acter of,  4  ff.,  443  ;  reasons  for  de- 
cline of,  9 ;  why  slow  advance  in, 
11 ;  lines  of  development  after  the 
crusades,  278 ;  summary  of,  443  ff.  ; 
advances  in,  453  ff. 

Civilization,  modern,  sources  of,  14 
ff.  ;  contributions  to,  by  Greece,  15 
ff.;  by  Rome,  20  ff.;  by  Christianity, 
50  ff.  ;  by  the  Germans,  89  ff. ;  why 
comparatively  productive,  453. 

Clement  V.,  397. 

"  Clericis  laicos,"  the  bull,  394,  3%. 

Clovis,  139  ff. 

Cluny,  reform  movement  of,  239  ff. 

CoLET,  John,  380  f .,  385. 

Coloni,  the,  67. 

Columbus,  290,  388  ff  ;  a  product  of 
the  Renaissance,  389  f. 


Comitatus,  the,  103,  203,  note,  204. 

''Commendation,"  the  practice  of,, 
200. 

Commerce,  effect  of  the  crusades 
upon,  273,  282,  449 ;  influence  of, 
in  later  middle  ages,  280  ;  decline  of 
Roman,  280 ;  in  early  middle  ages, 
281  ;  the  regions  and  articles  of  me- 
dieval, 283  ff. ;  influence  of  Turks 
upon,  284,  286 ;  character  of  later 
medieval,  2S6 ;  influence  on  rise  of 
'  cities,  290  ;  on  feudalism,  ^^96  ff.  ; 
on  rise  of  national  governments, 
298  ff.  ;  on  the  third  estate,  304  ff. 

Commons,  the  House  of,  composition 
of,  350 ;  growth  of  the  power  of, 
I     351  ff. 
,  "  Commune,^'  the,  293  ff. 

Constance,  council  of,  406  ff.,  420. 

Constance,  treaty  of,  253. 

CoNSTANTiNE,    6 ;    his    adoption   of 
Christianity,  49 ;  and  constitution- 
al changes  of  Diocletian,  50 ;   effect 
of  his  adoption  of  Christianity,  113. 
!  "  Const ANTiNE,   donation    of,"  234, 
j      245,  378. 

Copernicus,  385,  389. 

Corpus  juris  civilis,  33.  See  Roman 
law. 

Councils,  church,  rise  of,  117;  rela- 
tion of,  to  the  papacy,  397  ff.,  405 
ff. ;  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  con- 
stitution by  means  of,  410 ;  failure 
of  the  attempt,  411. 

Crusades,  the,  258  ff.  ;  the  first,  263 
ff.,  268  ;  causes  of,  263  f. ;  a  common 
European  movement,  270;  results 
of,  271. 

"  Curia  regis,''  the,  323  ff.,  329. 

Dante,  183,  note  ;  his  relation  to  the 
Renaissance,  374  f. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  the 
American,  35,  note  2,  99,  note. 

"Decretals,  the  false,"  234. 

Diocletian,  persecution  of  Chris- 
tianity by,  47,  48,  50;  changes  in 
Roman  constitution  by,  their  im- 
portance, 50. 

Diplomacy,  beginning  of,  363. 

Economic  progress,  relation  to  gen- 
eral progress,  279. 

Edward  I.,  England,  330,  note,  348. 
394,  396.  o         '         '  '        r 

Edward  II ,  England,  98,  348,  352. 


INDEX 


469 


Edward  III,  England,  349,  351,  350, 
o99,  401. 

EiiEitTON,  E.,  8,  note,  9,  note,  300, 
7iotc,  211,  note ;  his  account  of  the 
German  conquest,  65,  not: ;  on  the 
feudal  system,  194,  note. 

En(;land,    origin   of    representative 
system  in,  97  ;  elective  monarchy  in, 
98;  the  common  law  of,  101  f. ;  be- 
ginning of  modern,  187  ff.  ;  feudal- 
ism in,  188,  o41  fT.  ;  character  of  po- 
litical progress  in,  191  ;  serfdom  in, 
309;  formation  of  modern,  3o9  fF.,  i 
450  ;  effect  of  Norman  conquest  on,  j 
340 ;  institutional   development   of,  ' 
344  ff.  ;  constitution  of,  at  the  end  ' 
of  the  midnle  ages,  346 ;  civil  Liberty 
in,    in  1485,  355 ;  conflict  with  the  ' 
papacy,  396,  399 ;  medieval  heresies  I 
in,  419,  7iote.  \ 

Erasmus,  early  life,  380  ;  in  England, 
380  ;  influence  of  Colet  on,  380  and  \ 
note;  his  purposes,  381  f.  ;  his  New 
Testament,   382  f.  ;    his  answer   to 
objections,   383,    note;  his  relation 
to  the  Reformation,  383  ;  leads  the  j 
attack  on  the  old  system,  386 ;  his  j 
service  to  civilization,  423. 

Estates,  general,  the,  rise  of,  329  f., 
396;  attempt  of,  to  form  a  constitu- 
tion, 333  f . 

Ethics,  religion  and,  53 ;  contribu- 
tions of  Christianity  to,  55  ff.  ;  of 
chivalry,  277 ;  of  the  Renaissance 
age,  388. 

Eugenius  IV. ,  409. 

Explorations,  the  age  of,  273,  288  fi"., 
388. 


Federal  government,  origin  of,  19, 
note  ;  possibility  of,  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  church,  413. 

Ferdinand,  Spam,  363  f . 

Feudal  system,  the,  Fustel  de  Cou- 
langes  on,  138,  note  ;  conditions 
which  gave  rise  to,  174  ;  in  Germany, 
177,  32.5,  note;  in  England,  188, 
341  fF.  ;  formation  of,  194  ff.  ;  its  in- 
fluence on  civilization,  222  ff.,  448; 
effect  of  the  crusades  upon,  274  ;  ef- 
fect of  commerce  upon,  296  ff.  ;  eco- 
nomic foundation  of,  297 ;  in  France, 
313  ;  fall  of,  337. 

Florence,  government  of,  302,  361. 

France,  beginning  of  modern,  183, 
450;  character  of  political  ])rogress 
in,  190;  free  cities  in,  392  ff.  ;  for- 
mation of  modern,  31 1  ff.  ;  institu- 


tional development  of,  321  ff.  ;  not 
wholly  united,  337,  note ;  conflict 
with  the  papacy,  330,  393  ff.  ;  na- 
tional church  of,  409  f. 

Franciscans,  the  "  spiritual,"  401. 

Frankfort,  declaration  of,  399  f. 

Franks,  the,  their  alliance  with  the 
papacy,  127,  143,  153,  230;  impor- 
tance of  their  history,  137 ;  begin- 
ning of  their  conquests,  139  ;  retain 
German  elements,  140;  unite  Roman 
and  German,  140 ;  their  relation  to 
the  growth  of  the  feudal  system, 
2021;  theirmstitutions  in  England, 
340. 

Frederick  I.,  Brandenburg,  359. 
!  Frederick  I.,  emperor,  247  ff.,  268. 
1  Frederick  II.,  emperor,  255  f.,  269. 
I     393. 

Freeman,  E.  A.,  on  the  rapid  spread 
1  of  Christianity,  41 ;  his  historical 
work,  339,  note. 

Fustel  de  Coulanges,  on  survival  of 
the  Roman  idea,  96,  note  ;  his  his- 
torical work,  138,  note,  380,  note. 

Gallican  church,  liberties  of  the,  410, 
note. 

Gerbert  of  Rheims,  237,  273,  367. 

Germans,  in  Roman  empire  before 
the  invasion,  24,  67 ;  their  contribu- 
tions to  civilization,  89  ff. ;  indebted- 
ness of  modern,  to  Anglo-Saxon  in- 
stitutions, 103,  note.  See  Teutonic 
race. 

Germans,  early,  compared  with  North 
American  Indians,  7 ;  question  of 
their  Romanization,  11,  28  f . 

Germany,  formation  of  modern,  177 ; 
character  of  political  progress  in, 
190 ;  later  feudal  history  of,  225, 
note,  238,  249  ;  later  medieval  his- 
tory, 356  ff.  ;  conflict  with  the 
papacy,  399  f .  ;  national  church  of, 
410. 

Gekson,  John,  404,  428. 

Goths.     See  Ostrogoths,   VisiyotJis. 

Gnosticism,  113. 

Graf,  the,  159. 

Greece,  contributions  of,  to  civiliza- 
tion, 15  ff.  ;  not  political,  18. 

Greeks,  not  a  political  race,  18;  con- 
trast with  Romans,  in  power  of  as- 
similation, 36  ff.  ;  their  influence  on 
the  Arabs,  3G0. 

Greek    language,    knowledge    of,   in 


460 


INDEX 


middle  ages,  8,  366  ;  a  universal 
language  in  the  East,  2b,  note  2 ;  re- 
vived study  of,  377. 

Greek  philosophy,  a  permanent  ele- 
ment of  civilization,  16  ;  adopted  by 
the  Romans,  20 ;  influence  on  Roman 
la/w,  32 ;  aid  to  spread  of  Christian- 
ity, 44 ;  influence  on  Christian  the- 
ology, 113 ;  in  scholasticism,  368. 

Gregory  I.,  118,  123,  125,  230  f. 

Gregory  VII. ,  240  flf.,  367,  393,  414. 

Gregory  XL,  403. 

Gregory  XH.,  405,  407,  413. 

GuELFS,  the,  349. 

Hanseatic  league,  the,  885,  303  f. 
Hapsburg  family,  the,  357  f. 
Henry  I.,  king  of  Germany,  180. 
Henry  III.,  emperor,  238  f. 
Henry  IV. ,  emperor,  241  flf. 
Hknry  VI.,  emperor,  253  f. 
Henry  VII. ,  emperor,  358  £ 
Henry  I.,  England,  314. 
Henry  II.,  England,  315,  317,  354. 
Henry  HI.,  England,  319,  347. 
Henry  IV.,  England,  349. 
Henry  VIII. ,  England,  352. 
Henry  the  Lion,  349,  252. 
Henry,  Prince,  of  Portugal,  288. 
Hildebrand.     See  Gregory  VII. 
Hugh  Capet,  184,  313. 
Hdmanism.    See  Renaissance. 
Hundred  Years'  War,  the,  333,  349, 
893. 

Hungarians,  the,  invasions  of,  173, 
177. 

Huns,  attack  the  Goths,  66;  invade 

Gaul  and  Italy,  71. 
Huss,  John,  419  f.,  433,  436. 
Hutten,  Ulrich  von,  386. 

"  Immunity,"  the,  210. 

Impeachment,  beginning  of  the  right 
of,  351  f . 

India,  medieval  commerce  with,  283 
f.,389f. 

Indians,  North  American,  early  Ger- 
mans compared  with,  7  f. 
Infallibility,  papal,  413,  435,  442. 
Innocent  III.,  254  f.,  269,  393,  414. 
Innocent  IV.,  255. 


International  politics,  rise  of,  363, 
414  f. 

Investiture  strife,  the,  243  ff. 

Isabella,  Spain,  263. 

"  IsiDORiAN  decretals,  pseudo,"  334. 

Italy,  condition  in  tenth  century, 
181 ;  in  eleventh,  339  ;  in  twelfth, 
250 ;  free  cities  in,  301 ;  serfdom  in, 
309 ;  in  the  later  middle  ages,  360 
ff. ;  conditions  which  favored  the 
Renaissance,  373  f . 

John  VIII.,  335. 
John  XXIII.,  405. 
John,  England,  317,  348,  399. 
Judicial  system,  early  German,  95; 
Carolingian,  159  ff.  ;    formation  of, 
in  Prance,  333 ;   in  England,  326, 
note. 
Judge,  independence  of  the,  354  f . 
(  Julius  II. ,  361. 

I  Jury,  the,  not  in  Magna  Charta,  344 ; 
except  in  its  primitive  form,  354; 
'      origin  of,  353  f . ;  its  importance  for 
!      liberty,  354. 

I  "Justice."  in  feudal  law,  210,  314, 
i     215. 

Justinian,  bis  code  in  the  East,  26 ; 
I      his  codification  of  Roman  law,  33  ; 
his  conquests,  74  ;  his  code  in  Italy, 
75.     See  Roman  laiu. 

Kiersy,  capitulary  of,  175,  note. 

KonradI.,  179. 

Konrad  II. ,  emperor,  238. 

KoNRAD  III. ,  emperor,  268. 
1  ■ 

Law,  English  common,  101  f. 

Law,  Roman.     See  Roman  law. 

Latin  language,  knowledge  of,  in 
middle  ages,  8,  366 ;  in  the  Roman 
provinces,  23,  24  f . ;  a  universal  lan- 
guage, 34  f. 

Learning,  revival  of.  See  Renais- 
sance. 

Lefevre,  42.5. 

Legnano,  battle  of,  3.53. 

LkoIX.,  240. 

Lewis  IV. ,  emperor,  357,  3.59,  401, 

Literature,  medieval,  136,  317,  367. 

Lombards,  their  conquest  of  Italy, 
75;  danger  to  the  papacy  from,  1.53, 
360 ;  Pip[iin  attacks  them,  1.53 ; 
incorporated  in  Charlemagne's  em- 
pire, 158. 


INDEX 


461 


Lombard  league,  252,  303. 

Louis  VL,  France,  314. 

Louis  VU.,  France,  208,  315. 

Louis  VUL,  France,  318,  319. 

Louis  IX.,  France,  269,  318,  331. 

Louis  XI.,  France,  335. 

Louis,  the  Pious,  170. 

LuTHEK,  independent  of  earlier  move- 
ments, 384,  421  ;  his  relation  to  the 
Reformation  movement,  426 ;  his 
personal  characteristics,  427  ff.  ; 
growth  of  his  opinions,  428  ff.  ;  his 
humanistic  spirit,  429  f.  ;  but  stiU 
medieval,  431 ;  his  relation  to  the 
right  of  free  thought,  432  ;  first  pub- 
lic act  of,  in  the  Reformation,  433  ; 
is  brought  into  opposition  to  the 
church,  435  f .  ;  his  position  logic- 
ally complete  in  the  Leipsic  debate, 
436.  See  Protestantism,  Reforma- 
tion. 

Machiavelli,  362,  388. 

Magna  Charta,  the,  344  f . 

Marcel,  Etienne,  334. 

Marco  Polo,  273. 

Marsiglio  of  Padua,  401. 

Martin  V.,  408. 

Medici,  the,  302,  361. 

Mercantile  system,  the,  286,  note. 

Middle  Ages,  the,  boundary  dates 
of,  3 ;  general  character  of,  4  ff. ;  rea- 
sons for  decline  of  civilization  in,  I 
9;  why  progress  slow  during,  11; 
lines  of  progress  in  latter  half  of,  | 
278 ;  summary  of,  443  ff. ;  advances 
in  civilization  during,  453  ff. 

Misxi  dominici,  the,  160  ff.,  323. 

Mohammedanism,  259  ff. 

Mohammedans,  influence  on  civiliza- 
tion through  the  crusades,  271  f. ; 
European  commerce  with,  283  f. 

Monarchy,  development  of  constitu- 
tional, 98  ;  effect  of  crusades  on  rise 
of  modern,  274 ;  of  commerce,  298 
ff. ;  of  Roman  law,  326  ;  develop- 
ment of  French  absolute,  326,  328, 
336;  of  English  constitutional,  343 
ff. 

Monasticism,  origin  of,  131  ;  sources 
of  its  influence,  133 ;  its  work  for 
civilization,  133  ff.;  prevalence  of 
ascetic  feeling,  264  f.;  a  spiritual 
refuge  for  some,  437. 

Monet,  increased  circulation  of,  296 ; 
effect  of,  297. 


Monod,  G.  ,  does  not  follow  Fustel  de 
Coulanges,  138,  note;  quotation 
from,  224,  note. 

Montfort,  Simon  de,  334,  348. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  380,  438. 

MiTHRAISM,  42. 

Milan,  government  of,  303,  361. 

Nations,  beginning  of  modern,  176  ff., 
447  ;  formation  of  the  modem  idea 
of,  192 ;  influence  of  commerce  on 
the  formation  of,  398  ff. ;  final  rise 
of  modern,  311  ft.     See  the  JState. 

New  Testament,  critical  stildy  of, 
378,  381,  382,  tiote,  386. 

Nicholas  I.,  235. 

Nicholas  II.,  242,  245. 

Normans  the,  their  conquestof  Eng- 
land, 188,  340;  in  southern  Italy, 
345 ;  attacks  of,  on  the  Eastern 
empire,  262 ;  in  the  first  crusade, 
369. 

Northmen,  the,  158 ;  their  attacks 
on  Gaul,  173,  187  ;  on  England,  187. 

Nuremberg,  peace  of,  425. 

Ockham,  William  of,  401. 

Odovacar,  3,  73. 

Ostrogoths,    submit  to  Huns,  66 ; 

their  kingdom  in  Italy,  73  ff. ;  its 

fall,  75. 
Otto  I.,  emperor,  168,  180  ff.,  236. 
Otto  II.,  emperor,  236. 
Otto  III.,  emperor,  237. 
Otto  IV.,  emperor,  318. 
Ottokar  II.,  Bohemia,  358. 
Oxford,  provisions  of,  347. 
Oxford  reformers,  the,  380  f. 

Papacy,  the,  its  formation,  107  ff.; 
its  alliance  with  the  Franks,  137, 
143,  1.53,  330;  growth  of  the  ter- 
ritory subject  to  it,  76,  125,  1 .54 ;  its 
conflict  with  the  empire,  227  ff., 
448;  with  the  new  nations,  330  ff., 
392  ff. ;  its  relation  to  Italian  inde- 
pendence, 301,  360 ;  at  Avignon,  397 
ff. ;  loss  of  its  international  position, 
398  ;  the  great  schism,  402  ;  growth 
of  revolutionary  ideas  concerning, 
404 ;  attempt  to  transform,  into  a 
limited  monarcliy,  410  ;  result,  413  ; 
political  position  of,  at  end  of  mid- 
dle ages,  414  f. 

Pauliament,  the  English,  beginning 


462 


INDEX 


of,  329,  348  ;  contest  with  the  kings 
for  power,  348  ft'. 

Pari.ement,  the  French,  324. 

P.VTKOCINIUM,  the,  200,  205. 

Peasant  class,  the,  in  the  age  of  the 
crusades,  275 ;  aided  by  the  in- 
creased use  of  money,  398 ;  in  the 
hiter  middle  ages,  306  ft'. ;  Wat  Ty- 
ler's insurrection,  418. 

Peter  d'Ailly,  389. 

Peter  the  Hermit,  261  f. 

Petuaucu,  his  relation  to  the  Renais- 
sance, 375  ff'. 

Philip  I.,  France,  313. 

Philip  II.,  Augustus,  France,  268, 
:}16,  321. 

PuiLip  in.,  France,  320. 

Philip IV.,  the  Fair,  France,  320,  330, 
393  ff'. 

Philip  VI.,  France,  332. 

Plato,  44,  377,  381. 

Portuguese,  explorations  of,  288  flf. 

Pico  della  Mirandola,  381. 

Pippin,  151  ff'. 

Pisa,  councU  of,  405. 

Philosophy.  See  Greek  philosophy^ 
Stoicism,  Scholasticism. 

Pfccarium,  the,  199,  202,  205,  308. 

Printing,  invention  of,  378  f. 

Protective  system,  the,  rise  of,  286  f .  ' 

Protestantism,  and  free  thought, 
432,  438,  440  ;  how  differs  from  Ro- 
man Catholicism,  437,  440  ;  prevail- 
ingly theological,  438 ;  emphasized 
the  sermon,  439.  See  Luther,  Refor- 
mation. 

Prussia,  rise  of,  359. 

QuADRiviUM,  the,  366. 

Reformation,  the,  early  attempts  at, 
417  ff.;  their  characteristics,  421  ; 
why  it  was  revolutionary,  422 ;  con- 
ditions which  favored,  423  f.;  it  was 
inevitable,  425 ;  first  step  in,  433 ; 
efffect  of  this,  434  f . ;  meaning  and 
results  of,  436  ff.,  443.  See  Luther, 
Protestantism. 

Renaissance,  the,  relation  to  the 
middle  ages  as  a  whole,  10 ;  its 
spirit  in  time  of  Charlemagne,  164, 
note  :  characteristics  of,  364  f.,  373  ; 
scholasticism  and,  369,  371,  376; 
conditions  which  favored,  371  ff. ; 
characteristics  among  the  northern 


nations,  379  f . ;  relation  of,  to  the  Re- 
formation, 384  ;  attitude  of  the  uni- 
versities toward,  386 ;  sceptical  ten- 
dency in,  387 ;  the  fine  arts  in,  387 
f. ;  its  morals,  388  ;  results  produced 
by,  391  ;  its  spirit  in  Luther,  429  ff. 
Representative  system,  the,  origin 
of,  95  ff. ;  first  use  of,  in  modern 
states,  339 ;  in  England,  350  f.;  in  the 
church,  411. 
Richard  I.,  England,  268,  317. 

I  Richard  II.,  England,  98,  349,  352, 

j     419. 
Rhine,  League  of  the,  303. 

i  Rienzo,  402. 

I  Roman  Catholic  Church,  formation 
of,  108  f.;  a  reformed  church,  436; 
how  differs  from  Protestantism,  437, 
440 ;  emphasizes  the  idea  of  worship, 
440;  its  relation  to  free  thought, 
440,  note. 
Roman  Empire,  the  Holy,  168,  227  fi"., 
257,  301,  360,  448 ;  in  the  later  mid- 
dle ages,  357  ff. 
Roman  law,  31  ff.;  amelioration  of, 
32 ;  codification  of,  33 ;  influence 
of,  34  ff.,  75,  309,  note.  326  ;  in  mod- 
ern states,  100 ;  in  the  German 
kingdoms,  146;  studied  in  Italy, 
251 ;  revived  study  of,  300 ;  in 
France,  325  ;  in  England,  325,  342. 
Romanization,  of  the  Germans,  11, 
28  ;  of  the  ancient  world,  22  ff.;  the 
East  no  real  exception,  25 ;  results 
of,  38  1 
Rome,  decline  of  her  assimilating 
power,  11 ;  contributions  of,  to  civ- 
ilization, 20  ff.,  444 ;  political,  21  ff.; 
legal,  31  ff.;  causes  of  fall  of,  77  ff.; 
influence  of,  in  formation  of  the  pa- 
pacy, 117  ;  on  the  free  cities,  391, 
note. 

RtTDOLF;  of  Hapsburg,  Emperor,  357. 

Savonarola,  381. 

Saxons,  the,  invasion  of  England  by, 
71  f . ;  their  conquest  by  Charlemagne, 
157 ;  their  Christianization,  158  ;  rise 
of  the  dukes  of,  178. 


Schism,  the  great,  402  ff. 

Scholasticism,  273,  273,  368  ff.,  376, 
3861,  481  f. 

Schools,  Charlemagne's  revival  of, 
163  f. ,  367  ;  decline  of  Roman,  365  ; 
medieval,  366  f. ;  some  become  uni- 
versities, 370  ;  influence  of  the  Ref- 
ormation on,  441. 


INDEX 


463 


Science,  natural  and  physical,  work  ' 
of    the    Greeks    for,   16  fF.;  of  the  , 
Arabs,  260  f . ;  beginning  of  correct 
methods  in,  369,  370,  384 ;  the  lirst  j 
advance  of  modem,  oSo,  SS'J. 

Seeboum,  on  the  Oxford  reformers, 
380,  note. 

Serfdom,  rise  of,  84,  307 ;  in  the 
middle  ages,  308 ;  disappearance  of, 
309. 

SiCKiNGEN,  Franz  von,  360,  note. 

SiGiSMUND,  Emperor,  359,  406. 

Simony,  243. 

Slaveuy,  Christianity  and  the  aboli- 
tion of,  62,  note ;  Roman,  82  fF. ; 
negro,  1 96,  iiote  ;  in  medieval  com- 
merce, 284 ;  still  exists  at  end  of 
middle  ages,  308. 

Socrates,  .'53,  note. 

Spain,  occupied  by  the  Visigoths, 
70 ;  conquered  by  the  Arabs,  1.50 ; 
condition  of,  in  tenth  century,  189  ; 
rise  of,  at  end  of  middle  ages,  363. 

State,  the,  Christianity  and,  47 ; 
separation  of  church  and,  62 ;  an- 
cient and  modern  idea  of,  61,  91, 
192.     See  Nation. 

States  General,  the.  See  Estates 
Oeneral. 

Stephen,  England,  341. 

Stilicho,  68  f. 

Stoicism,  .55,  61 ;  cultivated  by  the 
Romans,  21 ;  influence  of,  on  Roman 
law,  32,  35,  note ;  a  missionary 
philosophy,  .58. 

Swabian  League,  304. 

Taxation,  Roman,  26,  85  f.,  201 ; 
beginning  of  modern,  298,  327, 
347,  394  ;  in  France,  336  ;  reference 
to,  in  Magna  Charta,  345;  history 
of,  in  England,  346  ff. 

Teutonic  race,  ability  to  adapt  itself 
to  new  environment,  12,  note.  See 
Germans. 

Testry,  battle  of,  149. 

TnEODORic,  the  Ostrogoth,  73,  140, 
379,  281. 

TuEODOSiAN  Code,  33,  75. 

Theodosius  the  Great,  Emperor,  6, 
68,  122, 7iote. 

TuEOLOOY,  not  Chiistianity,  51,  111 ; 
Greek  philosophy  and,  113;  ten- 
dency of  Luther  toward,  427,  431  ; 
of  Protestantism,  438  f. 


Third  estate,  rise  of,  274,  304  ff., 
449;  in  Estates  General,  329,  333; 
in  England,  351. 

Thirteenth  century,  a  great  intel- 
lectual age,  273,  369 ;  outcome  of, 
371. 

Toscannelli,  389. 

Tours,  battle  of,  151. 

Treason,  Anglo-Saxon  laws  of,  356. 

Trent,  Council  of,  413. 

Trivium,  the,  366. 

"Truce  of  God,"  the,  333. 

Turks,  the,  Seljuk,  261  ;  the  relation 
of  their  conquests  to  commerce, 
284,  388. 

"  Unam  sanctam,"  the  bull,  394  ff. 

United  States,  the,  12,  note,  19, 
note,  23,  30,  note,  35  and  note  2,  51, 
63,  86,  note,  96,  99,  note,  162,  note 
3,  317,  note,  3.54,  note,  361. 

Universities,  the,  founding  of,  273, 
3701,  386. 

Urban  VI.,  403. 

Valla,  Laurentius,  373,  378,  380,  383. 

Vandals,  the,  69,  70,  75. 

Vassalage,  beginning  of,  305,  308. 

Vasco  da  Gama,  289. 

Vatican,  Council  of,  413. 

Venice,  beginning  of,  75 ;  in  the  fourth 
crusade,  269 ;  early  commerce  of, 
281 ;  effect  of  Portuguese  discoveries 
upon,  389  f.  ;  government  of,  361. 

Verdun,  treaty  of,  170. 

Visigoths,  enter  the  Roman  Empire, 
66  ;  their  invasion  of  Greece,  68  ;  of 
Italy,  68  ff.  ;  their  settlement  in 
Gaul  and  Spain,  70. 

Waitz,   Georg,  138,  7iote,  1.54,  7iote, 

207,  note. 
Waldenses,  the,  273,  417  f. 
William  I.,  the  Conqueror,  England, 

188,  314. 
Worms,  the  concordat  of,  246. 
Wyclifpe,  403,  418  f.,  424. 

Yvetot,  kingdom  of,  215. 
ZWINGLI,  425. 


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